


Make Me

by Ajaxthegreat



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: A Bar Fight, Alcohol, Anal Sex, Because my two faves needed to have a one night stand in a seedy bar, Ben jumping on the D for the greater good, Dirty Talk, Dismemberment: a fun time for the whole family, Emperor Hux, Hux Has No Chill, Hux is Not Nice, Is interrogation while sucking dick a thing, It is now, Lovers to Enemies to Lovers Again, M/M, Manipulation, Masturbation, One Night Stands to save the galaxy, Oral Sex, Phone Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Sex and Violence my two favorite things, Smuggler Ben Solo, Violence, explosions and yelling, ill advised silent phone calls, life-ruining Pining, obviously, sort of, that gif from american horror story of him jerking off in the shower then crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-01 18:50:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 52,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8634037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ajaxthegreat/pseuds/Ajaxthegreat
Summary: A genocidal megalomaniac Emperor and a very slutty smuggler/occasional Resistance spy walk into a bar.Or: the one where Ben pulls a fast one on Hux and he spends the next year of his life relentlessly hunting Ben down in a blind rage, Ahab-style





	1. Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> This happened because I'm in love with Smuggler Ben Solo and also because Emperor Hux makes me tingly.  
> Send me thoughts and feelings <3

The Falcon was shaking.

The Falcon was shaking very hard and Ben was running out of languages to curse in.

If Chewie were here, he’d be able to fix it in no time, but flying the Falcon without a copilot wasn’t exactly a fun time in the best of circumstances and, well. Ben had left in … a hurry. And he _maybe_ wasn’t, strictly speaking, supposed to be flying it. So he’d … maybe… skipped a few preparation steps during take off. What with all the running away, and all. And now he had to choose between avoiding a metric fuck-ton of asteroids and keeping up with some truly ridiculous velocity and direction changes (frankly, this route made the Kessel Run look fucking _easy_ ) and fixing the shaking. So. The Falcon was shaking. Obviously.

Han was going to be _furious_.

There was an excellent curse in Shyriiwook for just this sort of situation - (well, actually, the curse was specifically for being stuck in a very tall tree with two broken legs, but Ben figured it would work fine) and just as soon as he stopped shaking, Ben was going to say it. Or try to say it. Or at least think it very violently.

“Come on, baby, just keep it together,” he muttered under his breath, frighteningly like his father even to his own ears. He was so close. Just that _one_ last turn and he’d be free.

The Falcon started making a very alarming noise.

“Fuck. Shit.”

Back to Basic, then. The least colorful curses in the galaxy. Well, old habits and all, Ben supposed.

He slammed the Falcon out of hyperspace, made a wildly sharp left turn, and jumped back into it while the poor ship screamed relentlessly at him. He nodded his head, turning a hundred knobs at once, brain a complete blank of panic.

“I know, baby, I know.” The compressor was seconds away from blowing up in his face, the Falcon was seconds away from disintegrating mid-hyperspace and he was seconds away from scattering his freckles into three different systems. Force, his father really was going to kill him.

Wait.

 _Fuck_.

Ben reached out with the Force and adjusted the compressor.

The Falcon stopped shaking immediately, alarms and lights shutting off.

“Why didn’t you do that five minutes ago you fucking _-”_

Talking to the ship was one thing. She deserved to be talked to. Talking to _yourself_ might be cause for concern.  

Ben dropped the Falcon out of hyperspace for the last time, made a few adjustments, double-checked he was in protected space and finally, finally sat back. His shirt was soaked through with sweat and his hair was a disaster. He needed a drink. He was only an hour or so from Tattooine and the bartender at the Mos Eisley cantina still owed him 3 whiskey barrels for that thing with the-

Nope. Focus. Wait for orders.

A high, piercing sound jerked Ben upright where he’d just been starting to relax. The Falcon’s comm system was yelling at him. He sighed and pushed a button.

“Dad.”

“ _Kid, where the actual ever-loving fuck is my ship?”_

“Riiiight,” Ben grimaced. “Uh. Yeah, so. I-”

“If you _left me here_ and took my ship there is literally _nowhere_ I won’t find you-”

“Yeah. Dad. Dad, listen.”

“-finding pieces of you for _years_ , kid, I swear-”

“Dad just listen-”

“- Force or not, so help me if you don't turn that ship the fuck around _right now_ I will _rip your arms off_ -”

“Dad!”

“ _What!”_

Ben took a deep breath. “Mom needs it.”

The line was deadly silent for a long time before Han’s voice came back.

“Shit.”

Ben propped his feet up on the console and reached for the apple he’d forgotten was in his pocket. He threw it up in the air and caught it a few times.

“Yeah, so.”

The line crackled like Han was shuffling around, and Ben heard Chewie trying and failing to say something to Han quietly. Chewie was so fucking loud. The corners of Ben’s mouth curled up a little bit.

“Hey, Uncle Chewie. Sorry I stranded you.”

Chewie cursed at him and Ben smiled wider, taking a huge bite of the apple and settling in. Han spoke again, hesitant.

“Does she - is she. Shit.”

“Uh-huh,” Ben said, mouth full.

“Is it for-”

“Yep.”

Han swore in a language Ben didn't actually know.

“We knew you wouldn't just give it to me,” Ben said around bites of his apple, “if you knew what it was for.”

“Look, I just don't want you-”

“I know. But I am.”

Han huffed over the comm.

“I -”

Ben held up a hand even though Han couldn't see it. “Dad, this isn't something you can do.”

Han didn't say anything. Ben could practically hear him glowering through the comm.

“It’s gotta be me and you know it. And the General knows it.”

“Don't call her that, kid. She's your mom.”

“Right now, Dad, she’s my General.” This conversation was getting old fast, and Ben just wanted to sleep. His hands were sore from his insane run earlier.

Han huffed again, clearly uncomfortable. “Just.” He stopped. He always had a hard time with this part.

“Be, uh, careful. And.”

Ben put him out of his misery. “I'll be as careful as you, Dad.”

“That's what I’m afraid of.”

“And I love you, too.”

Han sniffed. Ben ended the call and kicked off his shoes. It was going to be a long drive.

About 10 minutes later, the comm rang again.

“Yeah?”

“Yo, Benny.”

Ben grinned at the console and threw out his arms, as if Poe could see them.

“Poe!”

“Hey man, I’ve got your mom here, but uh, before I go in there and hand you over to her…”

Ben raised an eyebrow. He really needed to stop with the nonverbal facial cues when he was completely alone in the vacuum of space. Poe didn’t continue, just left his trailed off sentence hanging awkwardly in the air of the Falcon’s cockpit.

“What’s up, Dameron? Spit it out.”

Poe made a very loud coughing noise, the comm exploding into static for a few seconds. He sounded horribly uncomfortable. _Oh_. Right. Ben knew what he wanted to talk about. Poe finally stopped coughing enough to say, “I just, uh. I wanted to make sure -”

“We’re good, man,” Ben said easily, waving a hand.

“Okay, cool.” Poe stopped, then continued again as if it was paining him, “So - that was - I mean. What, uh. Happened last week. Was. A mistake, yeah?”

“Sure. Consider it forgotten.”

“Yeah? Cause, I mean, you’re a good friend, Benny.”

Ben smiled and could feel it sitting all soft and sentimental on his face. “Yeah, Poe, you’re a good friend too, man.”

“I, uh. Wouldn’t want anything to -”

“Me either. Like I said, don’t sweat it.”  

“Thanks.” Poe coughed again. “Anyway, buddy, I’ve got the General here for you. And Ben?”

Ben leaned forward onto his knees at the tone in Poe’s voice.

“Be careful, okay? Leave this shit to me next time.”

Ben grinned with one half of his face. “Can’t let you have all the fun, Dameron.”

Poe laughed and handed the comm to Leia, who didn’t seem to be in the mood.

“You’ve got 3 days, Ben.”

Ben sat up straight. “You bet, General.”

“My intelligence has the Emperor’s location for the next three days. Then he’s back in First Order space and we’ve lost any chance of getting anything. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Leia’s voice softened, that half-mix of General and Mom that Ben hated so much. A truly terrifying voice to be scolded in.

“Benjamin?”

“Mm?”

“Be _careful_. We just need the Emperor to confirm that they’re holding Luke. Nothing else. Don’t get fancy, you got that? In the event that he does confirm it we have a plan in place.”

“I know, I know.” Ben waved her off.

“Don’t get _fancy_ , Ben.”

Ben laughed and didn’t respond, wiggling his toes on the console.

“Hey, Mom, do you think you could get me some better socks? Mine have holes in them.”

“Benjamin Organa Solo -”

“I got it! Don’t get fancy.”

“Intel. This is intel gathering, Ben.”

“Where is he?”

Leia faltered for a second. “Well, that’s the thing. We’ve got a reliable source, one we’ve used before, that called in a few minutes ago but…”

Ben waited but she didn’t continue. “But?”

“He’s apparently at the Tarma spaceport cantina.”

Ben had been picking the seeds out of his apple core, but he dropped all of them at this. They scattered all over the floor, one going under the seat where Ben was fairly sure it would never surface again. Chewie would have been furious.

He must have heard her wrong. “What?”

“That’s what our intelligence says. He’s there with his military general.” Leia didn’t sound horribly convinced.

Ben picked his jaw off the floor long enough to say, “Emperor Hux, _the_ Emperor Hux, is at the fucking Tarma Cantina? _The_ Tarma Cantina?”

“Apparently so.”

“Mom, that’s where Dad and I -”

“I _do not_ want to know.”

Ben snorted. He checked his navigation system.

“I’m 20 minutes away from Tarma now.”

“Don’t engage, Ben. Just observe.”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

Poe’s voice sounded from the background, like he was standing off to the corner of the room, “Benny, remember that stuff I told you about gathering intel during sensitive ops, man!”

Ben grinned, “Mom, I can’t hear what Poe’s saying, but do me a favor and tell him he ain’t that memorable.”

There was a choking sound and Leia sounded like she was laughing. “His face is all red, Ben, what did you do to him?”

“Will you guys stop worrying about me already?” Ben put his shoes back on. “I’ve got this. I’ll find him, I’ll do a little surface Force reading, it’ll be easy. Just _relax_ , already.”

Poe’s far-off voice yelled towards the comm, “You sound like your old man, Benny!”

Ben grinned.

“I love you, Ben,” Leia said, jarringly loud and clear after Poe’s muffled yelling.  

“I know.”

Leia huffed a laugh and he could practically hear her rolling her eyes. Poe said something unintelligible in the background. Ben leaned forward toward the comm and said, “love you, Mom,” and hung up.

He had 20 minutes to get ready for the seediest, grimiest, most despicable den of iniquity he’d ever had the pleasure of frequenting. He grinned, double checked his nav settings, and fixed his shirt.


	2. Hook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Emperor does the equivalent of the shrug emoji. And drinks a lot.

“Phasma, please remind me why we are at the kriffing _Tarma Spaceport_ of all places?”

Phasma’s huge blonde head shook wearily. “Even the Emperor’s gotta get out every once in a while, Hux, don’t you think?”

Hux looked at the grimy ceiling with a long-suffering sigh. It was true that he could use … a break. But a break was a brandy in his enormously upgraded office, and maybe a cigarette. A break was not a trip to a shit weigh station on a backwater planet in unprotected neutral space, in an unmarked shuttle driven by your insane best friend.

“Phasma, the last time I took a break, someone tried to kill me.”

Phasma rolled her eyes and pulled on Hux’s jacket for him, rubbing dirt into it. Hux just stood there and let her, thanks to the flask they’d split on the trip over. “People are always trying to kill you. Come on, don’t you wanna be someone else just for a few hours? Just relax a little bit? Not think about all your …” Phasma waved her fingers. “Responsibilities and whatnot?” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “How long has it been, Hux?”

“Hm? Since what?”

Phasma looked at him.

“How long has it _been_ , Hux?”

Another sigh. She was right. It had been an unacceptably long time. Since his coronation Hux had been incredibly busy, he’d been too occupied with _running the galaxy_ to consider sex at all. He’d hardly even jerked off in almost a year. Hux ran a hand through his (unacceptably messy) hair. “I suppose we’re going, Phas.” He put on his menacing Emperor voice. “But you _owe_ me.”    

Phasma raised her eyebrows.

“Next time Ren has a fit, _you_ deal with her.”

Phasma got a very sly look in her eye that Hux didn’t like, but he didn’t feel like commenting on it. “Not a problem, _your grace_.”

“Please don’t call me that out here, someone might believe you.”

Phasma laughed. “We’re so far out, Hux, I doubt anyone’s even seen your face in pictures. That’s why I picked this place. And fix your hair,” she said, reaching over and pulling Hux’s hair into his eyes. “Good thing you didn’t shave yesterday. You hardly look like yourself.”

“Phasma, you _told_ me not to shave. In preparation for this ridiculous excursion.”

“Good thing, too. Like I said.” She winked. “Now let’s go get you laid, hm?”

She opened the door and a wave of at least 7 different kinds of smoke billowed out. There was some sort of creature hanging from the ceiling whose tail seemed to be included in one of the specialty drinks, and someone was dancing in a _cage_ to the left. They actually stepped over a severed arm to get to the bar. Hux had to admit that he did feel more comfortable wearing more … dirt.  

As soon as he sat down the bartender was on him, a sweet (mostly) human looking girl with tattoos all over her face.  She put down a little glass filled with clear liquid, with something crawling in the bottom of it.

Hux curled his lip before remembering he was pretending to be someone else. “What’s this?”

The bartender smiled. Her teeth were filed to vicious-looking points, but she had two rather adorable dimples. “You look tired.”

Hux raised an eyebrow.

She nodded to the glass. “It’ll help. On the house.” She winked.

Hux picked up the glass and held it up to the dim light. “Is that… an insect?”

“Don’t ask, just drink,” Phasma said, sitting down heavily next to him. She looked at the bartender and said, “I’ll have whatever the gross bug thing is.”

The bartender gave her a huge grin and poured her a drink. Phasma clinked her glass to Hux’s and raised her eyebrows, then downed the whole thing, crawling bug and all.

Hux shut his eyes and muttered, “I can’t believe you talked me into this,” before doing the same. The bug’s legs scratched his throat on the way down. _Fucking disgusting._

Almost immediately, though, he felt … better. Sort of buzzingly alert, aware of his surroundings in a way that felt both safer _and_ more exciting. He looked up at the bartender and she grinned, all her sharp teeth up against her bottom lip.

“Better?”

Hux nodded, surprised. “Thanks.”

“Told ya.” She walked away to bring them each whatever the rail whiskey was, somehow having gotten their orders without asking them.

Hux straightened up and leaned over to Phasma. “You feel better, too?”

Phasma was nodding, eyes bright and alert, huge grin spreading over her face. “I feel fucking _fantastic_ , Armitage.”

Hux ignored her. She grabbed their whiskeys and handed Hux his. It tasted like the bottom of the cantina floor, but the bug had left him willing to try new things.

Phasma pointed across the bar to a skinny boy with blue hair. “Him?”

“Phasma are we doing this already?”

“You’ve got no game, Hux, you’ve been out of it too long. We gotta give you a handicap time.” She took a huge gulp of her whiskey. “Gotta start early. Him?”

“No way, kriff, I could snap him in half.”

Phasma grinned. Hux downed half his drink, feeling a bit woozier than he expected because of the bug.

“ _Not_ in the fun way, Phasma.”

“Fine. Him?” 9 foot tall Wookie.

“Now you’re just being cheeky.”

“That one?”

“Ugh, he’s got a _tail_ , Phas. Plus he’s … too.”

“Too what?”

“Too _pretty_.”

Phasma squinted at Hux through the smoke of the bar, then squinted around again. Her eyes lit up and she pointed to a dark corner.

“That one.”

“He’s -”

Hux came up short. He scrambled for a reason. “He’s...too...look, he’s talking to that girl already.”

It was true, the man was leaning against the wall in a corner of the bar, one hand in his pocket and the other around the waist of a Twi'lek girl who hardly came up to his shoulder. He was whispering something in her ear.

“Hux you’re staring.”

“What?” Hux whipped around to face Phasma, then regretted it dizzily. The bartender had refilled their drinks when he hadn’t been looking. “I’m not staring.”

Almost as soon as he said it, the man looked up. Straight at him.

The bar felt infinitely smaller, horribly smaller. Oppressive. The man’s eyes were so dark Hux felt, for one second, absurdly _afraid_. His face was hot.

Phasma was laughing at him over her drink. “You’re _blushing_ , shit.”

Hux turned back to her and snapped, “you hold your tongue or I’ll have you executed.”

“You won’t.”

“Not if you _shut up_.”

He looked back up to the dark corner but the man was gone, the girl leaning against the wall with a dreamy expression on her face. Hux felt slightly (embarrassingly) disappointed before he shook himself and turned back to his drink.

“Is anyone sitting here?”

Phasma leaned over before Hux could even formulate a response and said, “ _fuck_ no, please, be our guest!” Hux glared at her and she clinked his glass and said, “be right back.”

“Phasma -”

She winked and walked further into the cantina, toward the music. Hux sighed for the 30th time that night and turned to his visitor. His very _tall_ , very attractive visitor. Hux could almost definitely _not_ break this one in half. He grinned in spite of himself.

The man smiled back, lopsided and cocky, dark eyes doing most of the laughing. His voice was low, hypnotically smooth and intimate.

“What are you drinking?”

Hux resisted the urge to clear his throat.

“Whiskey.”

The bartender was in front of them with two more glasses before Hux’s visitor could even open his mouth. Which was - two drinks in - rather a good mouth, if Hux said so. And he did. Say so. The man grinned again, eyes warm. He held out a big hand.

“Name’s Kylo, nice to meet you.”

_Kylo_. This man didn’t look like a Kylo. Hux took the hand and shook it, startled by how warm it was.  

“Bren.”

Kylo pulled Hux’s hand in a little closer, leaning forward just a bit. His hair was impossibly dark too, just like his eyes. He smelled good. Nothing in this disgusting spaceport smelled good.  

“Bren, has anyone ever told you that you look a bit like Emperor Hux?”

Hux laughed. Well, the whiskey laughed and Hux just … went along with it.

“Yeah,” he said, still grinning, still holding Kylo’s hand. “I get that from time to time.”

“I mean,” Kylo let his hand go and leaned back, crossing his foot over the top of his leg and taking a drink, “you’re clearly not.”

Hux couldn’t help it. “Clearly?”

“Well, yeah.” Kylo’s leg was angled into Hux’s space and Hux couldn’t shift away without making it obvious. He couldn’t shift closer without making it obvious either. Kylo kept talking, “I mean. The Emperor’s not…” he waved at Hux’s face and trailed off.

“Not what?” Hux asked, genuinely curious.

“Not.” Kylo gestured to Hux’s face again. “Fucking gorgeous.”

Hux’s whole face went red. His whole _body_ went red.  He wasn’t sure if he was flattered or furious. Kylo was still talking, almost as if it were to himself.

“I mean, I’ve seen those pictures, you know? But. Those are propaganda pictures and that guy _still_ looks like he’s gotta shit something spiny.”

Hux took a huge gulp of whiskey to avoid any other facial expressions or reactions. Kylo leaned forward, knee brushing the outside of Hux’s leg.

“You though,” he said, voice lower and quieter, “you don’t look like that kinda man.”

Hux raised an eyebrow. “What kind of man do I look like to you, then?”

“I dunno.” Kylo leaned forward further, smelling like whiskey and clean grass.

“You’re a hard guy to read, Bren. I dunno what’s going on under there.” He waved to Hux’s general person. “I’d like to find out, I think.”

Hux let himself look a bit longer than was strictly called for (whiskey) and cleared his throat when Kylo smiled at him, slow and warm in a way that slipped right under his skin.

“And I’m pretty sure,” Kylo said, lowering his voice so Hux had to lean in, “you wanna find out too.”

Hux huffed, rolling his eyes. The bartender materialized next to him with _another_ tumbler of whiskey. She winked and sauntered off to the end of the bar where Phasma was grinning at her with a glass in each hand.

“You’re rather presumptuous.”

Kylo raised an eyebrow while Hux took a sip of his drink. It seemed better this time, like she’d given him better quality. Hux held the glass up and inspected it while he continued.

“Maybe you’re wasting my time. Maybe I want you to leave right now.” He looked up. “Maybe I’m not interested in you.”

Kylo grinned that half-face grin again, eyes sparkling dangerously.

“ _Do_ you want me to leave?”

“No.” Hux spoke without meaning to, whiskey punching it out of him in a horribly breathless voice. Kylo grinned wider and put a huge, warm hand on Hux’s knee. He leaned in until their noses were almost touching and said, “good.”

He sat up abruptly, leaning back in his chair and sipping his drink, making Hux hyper-aware of how far he’d been leaning into his space, how his whole body was angled towards Kylo in his bar stool, how Kylo’s arm over the back of his chair was almost-but-not-quite touching him.

“So,” Kylo said, “what do you-”

A man in an odd-looking leather jacket walked up to the bar next to Kylo, took his drink out of his hand, and smashed it on the floor. Kylo closed his eyes for a second like he was trying to calm down, then smiled at Hux again.

“Excuse me for a second.” He turned. “Bala-Tik.”

The man looked too enraged to speak, instead taking out a blaster and aiming it at Kylo’s head, point-blank. Kylo didn’t even shift in his seat, elbow on the bar, whole body relaxed.

When the man did speak, his accent was strange and heavy. “Last time I saw you we didn’t get to finish our conversation, Sol-”

“Last time you saw me, you and the Guavians were trying to remove my toenails, man. Let’s not.”

Bala-Tik looked over to Hux for a brief second, failed to recognize him, and then turned back to Kylo, blaster still touching his forehead. Kylo looked like he could have fallen asleep like that. His utter nonchalance made Hux’s collar feel too tight.

“I want my money you-”

“You’ll get your money, alright?” Kylo said easily, voice relaxed. “Just. Take a step back. Or 20.”

Bala-Tik seemed extremely unhappy with this suggestion, and moved to grip his blaster in both hands. He was going to shoot him. _Fuck_ , he was going to shoot him and his pretty brains were going to end up in Hux’s lap and _really_ , Hux had had enough people’s brains in his lap for a lifetime.

What happened next was…fuzzy. Probably because of the whiskey. He didn’t notice Kylo move, but he had to have, because the blaster was suddenly on the bar, then in Kylo’s hand and Bala-Tik was cradling a hand with five horribly broken fingers. He cursed in a language Hux didn’t understand.

Kylo laughed. “Hey, man, you said it, not me.”

Bala-Tik lunged forward like a shark, but Kylo brought the blaster up and aimed it at his face, smooth and easy, bringing him up short.

“You know I will.”

Bala-Tik grimaced and fixed Kylo with a horrible look. “This isn’t over, So-”

“It’s over for now, Bala-Tik. Run along.”

Hux watched the man’s retreating back with one raised eyebrow, proud of himself that his jaw wasn’t on the floor. He was sure he must look very cool and unimpressed. He cleared his throat. “So, you’ve got a rather,” Hux smiled a bit, “a rather tough job, I take it?”

Kylo grinned that secret, dark little thing that made Hux go hot all over. He was beginning to hate it. Or love it. He wasn’t strictly sure which it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify: Both Hux and Ben do get very drunk soon, but neither ever lose their ability to reason or consent. 
> 
> The POVs switch off every chapter because why not and because I needed to be able to gush about each idiot properly, and you can't do that if you /are/ that idiot.
> 
> Next up is probably my favorite scene so far. Ya'll are SO nice and it's making my life please never change.


	3. Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some complications arise, and Ben feels rather conflicted about how fun they are.

“So, you’ve got a rather – a rather tough job, I take it?”

Ben resisted the urge to smirk. Well, mostly. He probably still smirked a little, if the way the Emperor was going all red and fuzzy-eyed was any indication.

This had not been what Ben expected.

He had not expected the infamous Emperor Hux to be. Well, to be so good-looking. Frankly. Absurdly good-looking in a way that was disarmingly … vicious. With a delicate, violent-looking jaw and the most incredible colored hair Ben had ever seen. When he smiled Ben thought of birds of prey, with those awful sharp eyes and those overwhelming talons. He’d seen a Corellian Eagle catch a fish when he was younger – and even as it tore the fish to pieces Ben couldn’t look away. It had just been so fucking beautiful. Ben had expected the Emperor to have … well, a _mean face_ , but he hadn’t expected to like it so much.

So, hurtle number one. Was the face. It was – a good face. Ben had struggled not to stare from the second he walked in, repeating _observe don’t engage observe don’t engage_ over and over in his head before he cursed to himself and walked over to sit next to him.

He told himself it was just going to be a quick hello and a light Force-tap to his mental state, but. Hurdle number two.

Emperor Hux _wanted_ him.

He wanted him _bad_ , too, Ben could tell from the way his face flushed and his eyes got all dark and hot on him. Well, he wanted Kylo bad. If he knew Kylo was actually Ben, he might want him a bit less bad.

So hurdle number two presented Ben with an inescapable opportunity: seduce the information out of him.

_Don’t engage,_ Ben thought. _Woops._

“Hello?”

Ben started and looked up. “Hm? Oh! Yeah, I guess. It’s not the worst, though. Sometimes people try and torture you, but. All in all.” He grinned and licked his lips, watched Hux’s eyes follow it.

“Sure, yes,” Hux said softly, unfocused. Ben smothered another smirk. He leaned into Hux’s space again – _shit_ , he did smell really good though. Reminded Ben of visiting Ahch-To. Wind, salt water.

Hux had a stronger Force presence than anyone Ben had ever known who wasn’t Force-sensitive. It was almost intoxicating, the anger and violence and repressed lust that rolled off him.

“What about you?” Ben said, low in a way that he knew would buzz around in Hux’s chest. “What kinda job do you do?”

Hux smiled, and it was distracting. It was frightening, somehow, but it still lit up the little flecks of green in his eyes. It made Ben think of Ahch-To too, the little islands. Swallowed up in all that ocean.

“Trying to get information out of me, hm?”

Ben’s stomach dropped and he forced himself to keep his facial expression neutral, but something flickered in the Emperor’s eyes and Ben realized he wasn’t accusing him. He was _flirting with him_. Fuck.

He leaned in further, hand on the edge of Hux’s bar stool.

“Is it working?”

Hux huffed a laugh into his face. “No.”

Ben tilted his head, almost like he was going to kiss him and said, “It will.”

Hux ran a hand through (-really, really fucking brilliant-) ginger hair and one corner of his mouth pulled up. He looked down, thinking, and looked back up all warm and sly.

“I don’t think so,” Hux said, shifting so his leg touched Ben’s wrist where he gripped Hux’s chair. “I’m very committed to maintaining my air of mystery, as it were.”

For a second, just for one second, Ben completely forgot this man was the Center of Evil in the universe. Then he shook himself out of it. _Okay. How do we do this?_ He looked Hux over again. Despite his clothes (clearly a disguise, though one that seemed to be working shockingly well), he carried himself with the air of someone who was … prissy. Vain. Petty. Ben could feel it coming from him in waves; a crack in his otherwise frigid armor.

He poked at the crack with a stick.

“Do people ever,” Ben raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. “You know.”

Hux shook his head slowly, irritated and confused.

“Uh, no I don’t know.”

“ _You_ know. Ask you to uh,” Ben bit his lip, half to stop from laughing and half committed to this deliberately obtuse and roundabout question.

Hux’s pupils dilated visibly at the drag of Ben’s teeth over his lip. He looked back up to Ben’s eyes and raised his eyebrows. Ben continued.

“You look like Hux. The Emperor. Emperor Hux, you know?”

“Yes, you’ve said that already.”

“So,” Ben said, grinning ear to ear. “Do people ever ask you to,” he let his gaze linger on Hux’s waist, “pretend?”

Hux’s eyes froze wide.

“Pretend?” His voice dragged rough and surprised over the question.

Ben feigned nonchalance, sat back in his chair and said in an affected voice, “Yeah, you know. Cause some gross motherfuckers wanna stick it to the Emperor.”

“ _Stick it_?”

Ben had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing. Hux was already getting red and indignant, his irritation stifling through the Force.

“Yeah,” he said, like he was explaining. Hux’s eyes got so green when he was angry. It was a full color shift – blue to green, just like that. Like magic. “I mean, like I said, from the pictures I’ve seen, guy’s not my type. But some people like … that.”

“What’s ‘that,’ exactly?”

Force help him, he was so easy. Ben took another sip of his drink to encourage Hux to do the same. It worked; Hux took a huge gulp.

“Stick up his little pansy ass, genocidal maniac, lily-white hands, that sort of thing.”

Hux choked on his whiskey and Ben had to shake off the smile and furrow his eyebrows.

“You okay there, Bren?” _Bren. As in Commandant Brendol Hux. Seriously? Not even a single attempt at subtlety?_

“Just fine,” Hux croaked. “Wrong pipe.”

“Anyway, you didn’t answer the question.”

“What question?”

“Whether people bend you over and call you Emperor.”

Hux’s rage was so sudden and so hot that Ben could physically feel it on his skin. He bit his cheek again to stop smiling.

Hux kept his expression so neutral that Ben was actually impressed. When his anger simmered down a bit he smirked at Ben through his impossibly orange hair and said, “nobody bends me over at all.”

Ben grinned in spite of himself.

“Hm.” He leaned into Hux’s space and considered his mouth. “That’s a pity.”

There was a look in Hux’s eyes that suggested that he might, just this once, think that was a pity too, and that was just. Too much. This was all too much, he was _too easy_ , he wasn’t supposed to be this young, this beautiful, this relaxed. Ben reminded himself that he was the Galactic Emperor, and that he had ordered the death of billions of people, and that he probably hadn’t actually thrown a punch or seen real combat a day in his prissy little life. He seethed a little.

There. That was much more manageable.

Ben opened his mouth to say something else, and Hux’s eyes never moved from his tongue where he licked his lips.

There was a very loud, rude noise as a huge mountain of a man(ish thing) cleared his throat next to Hux. They both turned to him and looked up.

“You got nice hair,” said the mountain in an ugly rumbling accent. Hux’s distaste was so strong through the Force that Ben’s mouth twisted.

Ben leaned forward, brushing Hux’s shoulder with his chest and crowding into his space.

“He’s not interested, buddy.”

The mountain looked Ben up and down, then turned to Hux again.

“This pretty boy?” he asked, scratching his bald head. “Come on, baby, don’t play like that. I know what you really want.”

Ben sighed to the ceiling. He knew the early stages of a good old-fashioned Cantina Fight, and this was stage 1. He really didn’t want to have to defend the Emperor’s honor. Gross.

The mountain put a huge meaty hand on Hux’s shoulder. Ben reached back for his blaster but before he could get a hand on it, Hux had already moved.

The mountain’s wrist was on the bar top, sticking up at a terrible angle, and the whole man crumbled with it. He called Hux a vicious, disgusting name in a language Ben was certain Hux didn’t understand.

Though the tone was pretty clear.

Hux snapped his wrist. Actually _snapped_ it, so clean and so fast that one of the bones of the mountain’s hands came poking out of his skin and he howled, quieting the whole bar.

“You little ginger whore—”

Hux threw the man off him, put both elbows behind him on the bar, raised up his weight and drop kicked him across the cantina. His huge body slammed into a holochess board, disrupting a rather heated looking game.

Hux’s eyes were shining. “Does anyone else care to call me a whore?” He asked the silent room, voice loud and angry and drunk. Ben grinned sideways at him – they were both leaning backwards against the bar, elbows resting on the counter, side by side. The room regarded them collectively.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw the huge beautiful blonde woman who’d been with Hux earlier take the empty bottle of whiskey out of the bartender’s hand and smash it on the floor.

Absolute chaos erupted. Ben shifted in front of Hux and said, “Get behind me.”

Hux laughed at him and elbowed him in the ribs. When the first person jumped at him, Hux caught him in a headlock, twisted his neck until it cracked sickeningly, and threw his body away from him onto the floor. He looked over at Ben with an expression Ben had never seen on anyone’s face before- though he’d felt it on his own.

“I can take care of myself,” Hux said, low and electric. His voice was humming.

“Alright.” Ben grinned, huge and excited and genuine. “This is gonna get messy.”

The Tarma Cantina was absolute mayhem. The huge blonde woman had a man’s _severed head in her hands_ and she was threatening to throw it at a woman wielding a machete at the bartender; one of the dancers from the cage, a skinny little thing with black hair and a hole in his chest, had crawled out and was spitting acid all over the gang members next to him. One of them had already lost both legs. A human woman with short hair was beating a Hutt to death with a bottle of brandy, sitting perched on the back of his neck with bare feet and blood on her face. And people just kept _launching themselves_ at Ben and Hux.

They fought back to back, passing Bala-Tik’s blaster between them and creating a growing ring of unconscious bodies around them on the floor. Ben leaned his head back on Hux’s shoulder and said, “didn’t expect you to be able to fight like this.”

Hux decked a woman with a right cross so vicious Ben actually felt the reverb through where their backs touched. “No?”

Ben ducked a blaster bolt, turned himself and Hux around so they were facing each other, and whispered, “duck.”

They both rolled to the ground seconds before the bottle would have hit them – instead it crashed onto the bar and set it on fire. Hux looked up at Ben where they were crouched under the bar. The fire from the bar top made his eyes look insane. Like an ignition flame.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Ben looked down at Hux’s mouth for a half-second before catching himself and looking up again, but Hux’s foot was already out tripping someone next to them. Hux stood, hair the same color as the burning countertop. He held out a grimy hand to Ben, knuckles purple and bloody, and pulled him to his feet.

In his wildest speculations, Ben could not have anticipated this. That the Emperor – the one in his cushy red throne with his stupid red hair and over-exaggerated posture and ostentatious crown, the one who’d clearly never worked a day in his life, the one who had ice in his heart but not a shard of it in his veins – that _that_ Emperor was the same as this one. The one currently leaning his whole weight against Ben’s back, smelling like sweat and whiskey, warm and solid and dusty orange, the one with someone else’s blood all over his knuckles, all over his long neck and his collarbone where it stuck out of his t-shirt, the one slamming a man four times his size to the ground so hard the _wood floor cracked_.

They couldn’t possibly be the same man. Ben couldn’t have possibly been so wrong.

The Emperor couldn’t be this … this…

Hux nailed a leathery sort of creature in the face with a bloody fist and stole the cigarette from behind its ear as it swayed back and forth, stunned. He turned, lit the cigarette off the burning bar top, and blew the smoke in the creature’s face as it fell.  

Ben’s stomach dropped. Hux grinned around the cigarette between his teeth and said, “you’re staring.”

The fire was threatening to burn the whole place down – the back of Ben’s neck was soaked in sweat. When a mean-looking Barabel launched himself at them, Hux and Ben both hit him at the same time, sending him flying backwards against the cantina door. The bartender jumped onto the bar with a huge wookie bowcaster in her hands, boots engulfed in actual flames, voice cracking through the whole cantina like a cannon shot.

“That’s _enough!_ ”

The entire room went silent as the force of her voice blew out the burning countertop like a birthday candle. She propped the bowcaster up on one tattooed shoulder and her voice carried through the building, ringing and inhuman.

“If you’re all _finished?_ ”

The whole cantina stared up at her in silence, sized her up, and came to a collective decision. They rather quickly went back to their milling conversation as she stepped down from the smoking bar, winking at Hux’s blonde friend. As if nothing had ever happened. People started dancing over the bodies on the floor.

There was blood dripping off Hux’s knuckles and Ben’s skin was buzzing with adrenaline. He turned to Hux, mission momentarily forgotten, and before he could stop himself his big fat horny mouth said, “You got a shuttle?”

Hux grinned.

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hux is a vicious bastard and he misses violence in his life so much wow what a monster (i love him)
> 
> you guys your feedback means literally EVERYTHING. Sex is next, because every time I write sex it's preceded by a fight.
> 
> ...does that say something bad about me as a person


	4. Line (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short interruption and some shoddy spy work by Ben Solo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i lied, y'all. because i'm garbage. i SWEAR there's sex after this.  
> but first, have a drunk "i'm not horny you're horny" dick measuring contest.

They didn’t make it to the shuttle. They made it to the alleyway outside the cantina.

Hux hadn’t been in a fight in years, and his whole body was _singing_ with it. His knuckles itched, he had a hot bruise growing on his cheekbone and there was a warm smear of blood on his neck.

Kylo leaned in and actually licked it. Hux shuddered.

This had been… unexpected.

Hux wasn’t entirely sure what to do about any of it. He hadn’t planned on ... what was looking more and more like a one-night stand but. Well. The fight.

Kylo’s weight on his back, the look in his eyes, his head on the back of Hux’s shoulder. The easy way he’d fought, the effortless movement and grace with which he carried himself when he did damage – it was all. Intoxicating. And maybe he should have been more careful who he brought home – or who he dragged bodily to his shitty unmarked shuttle – but he wasn’t thinking _at all._

He was fixated with single minded intensity on Kylo’s hands when he’d taken Bala-Tik’s blaster from him, on his forearms when he threw his punches, on his _fucking_ biceps when he lifted his arm to run a bloody hand through his hair, laughing breathlessly and saying, “you got a shuttle?”

How could Hux have ever been expected to resist that?

He didn’t want to. What he wanted was to slam Kylo’s huge beautiful body into the wall outside the cantina and climb him like a tree.

Hux wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. He had Kylo against the wall in an alleyway before he even really registered it, one hand tight in his hair and the other one unbuckling his belt, breathing into his mouth without kissing him. Kylo sighed into his mouth and everything was so good and fuck, Hux felt so good and it had been so long since he’d had a good fight and his knuckles were _sticky_ with blood –

He normally had much better impulse control than this, he thought as he finally got Kylo’s belt off. When he tore it out of the belt loops of Kylo’s pants it made a vicious sound like a whip, and Kylo’s eyes got a little darker. Hux bit his lip and groaned.

" _There_ you are, H - uh, fuck, Bren!”

Both men jumped, Kylo holding his hands up like he’d been caught stealing something. Hux squinted down the alley and saw Phasma, hair in complete disarray, holding a bottle of something clear and the hand of the tattooed bartender.

He realized that he was still crowding Kylo against the wall, and that he still had a leg shoved in between both of Kylo’s. And that they were both still hard, despite the interruption. He cleared his throat at Phasma.

“Ah, hello, Phas.”

Phasma raised her eyebrows, no doubt at the drunken tone of his voice, but Hux didn’t care. He didn’t care about much of anything, except getting himself and the man in front of him very naked.

Phasma rolled her eyes. Kylo grinned and the bartender snorted loudly. “Yeah, you and all the rest of us, bud.”

Had he said that last bit out loud?

Kylo was looking the bartender (and Phasma) over with renewed interest and Hux felt a seed of ridiculous, irrational jealousy in his stomach. Kylo smiled _that smile_ at the bartender and winked at Phasma and said, “Next time, yeah ladies?”

Phasma threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, sweetie, thanks for the sentiment,” she said, slightly apologetic as her eyes lingered on his shoulders, the long line of his eyelashes. “But I’m more of a ‘do the fucking’ than a ‘get fucked’ type of person, you know?”

Kylo licked his lips. “Promise?”

Phasma grinned with all her teeth and the bartender raised an eyebrow. They shared a look and the bartender turned back to Kylo and said, “yeah. Next time.”

Kylo turned back to Hux, still grinning, and grabbed the front of his shirt.

“Hey!” Phasma said sharply. They turned to her.

“We’re … going. So. The shuttle is free if you want it.” She lowered her voice a bit. “I strongly suggest you take this show inside, _Bren_.” Hux could hear her subtext. _Someone’s going to see you. You’re wasted and you’re a sitting duck out here_.

Hux realized with a jolt that he was, actually, a bit wasted.

“What…happened to me?”

The bartender leaned forward where she’d been leaning against Phasma. “It’s the bug,” she said. “It hits you in stages.”

Hux nodded as if this explained everything, and maybe it did. Kylo smiled at him and it was like a physical warmth. He was seized by a sudden desire to tell him that.

“You’re. Fucking warm.”

Kylo’s voice was close to his ear, dark and quiet like the alleyway. “Thank you,” he murmured.

“No, no.” He didn’t understand and it was vital to Hux that he understand. “You’re _warm_. You’re so warm to look at. It’s making _me_ warm.”

Kylo huffed against his hair, pulling him in and making it impossible to think.

“You’re a very complimentary drunk,” Kylo said against his hair, huge hand playing with the hairs on the back of his head near his neck. Hux leaned backward, inhibitions decimated by the bug, closed his eyes and sighed.

“Fuck,” Kylo said under his breath, watching.

“Yes, please,” Hux’s mouth said without his permission. Kylo didn’t move from his spot against the wall, but his hands came up under Hux’s jacket and shirt, warm and huge and possessive on Hux’s back.

“I don’t know anything about you,” he said, eyes laughing.

“What do you wanna know?”

“Mm.” Kylo gripped Hux’s waist with his hands and nosed behind his jaw, kissed the skin there under his ear. “I have a few questions.”

Hux let out a shaky breath.

“Was that bug some sort of drug?” He asked, distracted and confused and hot all over, unable to keep the thread of their conversation. Kylo laughed against his ear and his knees went weak.

“Little crawly guy? Inside a shot glass?”

“Uh-huh.”

Kylo’s hands tightened on him.

“Yeah, a bit. You should just be feeling really good right about now.”

“Mm.”

Kylo traced Hux’s torso with his hands, fingers grazing over a scar on Hux’s midsection from a failed assassination attempt.

“So,” Kylo said softly, “my questions.”

“Someone’s going to see,” Hux said, whining and excited. He looked down the alley into the street at the same time Kylo dragged his nails over Hux’s ribcage. Hux hummed and tilted his head back again, eyes closed, leaning forward against Kylo.

“Let them see.”

“Mm.”

“I want them to see.”

Hux opened his eyes to look Kylo in the face and raise his eyebrows at him. Kylo grinned, unapologetic. He wrapped his hands around Hux’s torso and bit his jaw with sharp teeth.

“I want them all to see you out here with me, _this_ desperate, _look at you_ , Bren.”

_Who’s Bren_? Hux’s brain asked, thankfully not aloud. He desperately, dangerously wanted to hear his real name in Kylo’s voice.

“I’m not. Desperate.”

Kylo swung him around and slammed him into the wall, reversing their positions. He shoved a knee between Hux’s legs so he couldn’t move and breathed into his face, “Yes. You are.”

Well, he maybe had him there. For a second, Hux was afraid it was the bug, but he still felt like himself. Good, really good, but still himself.

He couldn’t blame this on the drugs or the alcohol. It was the fight.

Partially it had been watching the way Kylo had moved, the muscles of his forearms when he threw his punches, the weight of him against Hux’s back. The look on his face.

But partially, it had been _actually fighting_. Partially it had been the surge of adrenaline that accompanied landing a good hit, the feel of someone’s blood on his knuckles, the vicious satisfaction of snapping bones. The entire past year – even longer, if he was honest – had been meetings and politics and paperwork. Planning, if he was lucky. But this. This was something dark and hot and violent and _good_ that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Hux’s whole body was on fire.

Maybe he was a little desperate, then. But if Kylo thought he was just going to sigh and bend over, he had another thing coming.

Hux bit his lip.

“And you?” he asked, stepping out from the wall. Forcing Kylo to take a step back. He grinned, cocky and drunk and humming with electricity from the fight, and shoved Kylo backward until his back hit the alley’s opposite wall. Kylo’s belt was still on the ground, and when Hux knelt to pick it up he never looked away from Kylo’s face. Put one knee in the dirt and the other on the back of Kylo’s leg, knuckles scraping the wall behind him, holding him in place and pushing him against the wall at the same time.

“You don’t want this?”

Kylo swallowed visibly. Hux smiled again, picked up the belt and straightened up. Something disappointed flickered in Kylo’s eyes before they settled on the belt and lit up again.

Hux leaned forward, winding the end of the belt around his hand. When he spoke his voice slurred but they both ignored it. “Tell me you don’t want this.”

Kylo quirked an eyebrow, a challenge in the set of his ridiculous mouth, and shrugged.

“Oh, Bren, I’d be cool if you walked away _now_.”

Hux laughed. “Is that so?”

“Mhm.” Kylo licked his lips, clearly aware of how hard it was for Hux to look away from them. “You’re the one that can’t stop.” He reached out and touched Hux’s chest.

Hux wrapped the leather of the belt around Kylo’s wrist, pulled it tight and used the momentum to turn Kylo’s arm over. He was flipped around with his face against the wall and his arm behind his back before he could even open his mouth.

Hux pulled so the belt was tighter around Kylo’s wrist and stepped in close against his back.

“Ow,” Kylo said, muffled against the brick wall. Despite his affected expression his voice was breathless, surprised, hotter than before. “Warn a guy.”

“Alright there?” Hux asked, teasing. Kylo laughed.

“Oh, just fine, Bren.”

“You know,” Hux murmured against Kylo’s ear, “you sound a little desperate yourself.”  

“Do I?”

Hux pulled Kylo’s arm a little higher, heard his breath hitch. “Mhm.”

Kylo turned and grinned at him over his shoulder. “You know it’s sort of amazing you can do this as wasted as you are.”

Hux narrowed his eyes, wobbling a little. “I’m not _wasted_.”

Kylo pushed back against Hux’s chest, ass against his cock where it was still ridiculously hard in his pants, and moved his hips in a way that made Hux’s eyes cross. He dropped Kylo’s arm and the belt with it, both of them falling to the ground again.

“Fuck.”

Kylo grinned. “You’re not wasted, you said?”

Hux made a face, resisting the urge to hiccup. “Nope.”

Kylo had turned around and was facing him now, back still against the wall, winding huge arms around Hux’s waist, pulling him impossibly closer. He smelled so good. It seemed ridiculous. The bug told him he should say something about it.

“You smell. Really very incredibly good.”

Kylo’s eyebrows went up and he laughed, and this close to his face Hux could see his crooked teeth, the freckles all over his skin, the amber in his eyes. His obscene looking mouth and the dimple next to it. His cheekbones were so high Hux wanted to slap one.  

“I wanna hit you,” Hux’s mouth said, again without his permission. Kylo didn’t look surprised. He bit his lip, half smile on his face. Didn’t say a thing.

Hux’s (totally not wasted) brain filled in the silence horribly.

“Would you - would you let me hit you?”

Kylo worried at his lip where it was still between his teeth. He leaned in as if to kiss him, and Hux realized with a jolt that he had yet to actually kiss the man on the mouth. He suddenly desperately wanted to. Kylo leaned away again and Hux made a frustrated noise.

“I dunno, a complete stranger? That’s a lot of trust I gotta have in you, there, Bren.”

Something was shining in Kylo’s eyes and Hux was too drunk to understand why it seemed so out of place. He was too focused on the smell of him, like smoke and grass and engine grease, and the heat of him where he was pressed against every line of Hux’s body.

“I’m. Not a complete stranger.”

“No?” Kylo tightened his hands on Hux’s waist as if he could pull him even closer. He couldn’t. They were as close as it was possible to be, unless more clothes came off.

“Noooo,” Hux said, drunkenly sing-songing it a little.

Kylo leaned in and kissed his neck over the smear of blood from the fight. “Tell me something then.”

“Hm?”

“Tell me,” fuck, that was his _tongue_ on Hux’s ear, “tell me your favorite color.”

Hux sunk both hands into Kylo’s hair and sighed, “Brown.”

“Tell me your favorite drink.”

Hux could smell the alcohol still on Kylo’s breath, and even though the answer was brandy his mouth said, “whiskey,” without a hint of remorse.

Kylo hummed against him and his hands made their way under Hux’s shirt. He was impossibly warm, like he was generating too much heat, more than usual. Like he had more energy than the average person. “Tell me what you do for a living.”

Hux’s spinning brain slowed for a moment, just enough that he managed to say, “I’m. In administration,” instead of something else.

The chuckle that reverberated through his body made his toes curl and he dropped his head heavily onto Kylo’s shoulder, shifting to try and get closer but reluctant to pull away enough to get any clothes off. Kylo’s hands were pushing into the knobs of his spine one at a time, methodical and slow. When he dragged his nails all the way down his back Hux hissed and bit his lip to keep from cursing.

They needed to move this somewhere else.

“That sounds like a boring job, Bren.”

“We need to move,” he said, hating how slurred his words were, low and urgent and more than just drunk.

“After you.”

It took a truly monumental effort to tear himself away from Kylo’s impossibly warm body, especially in Tarma’s cooling night air, but Hux finally managed it. He wasn’t the steadiest on his feet that he’d ever been, but. He’d make it. The shuttle was close, and he had his own room there. He could do this.

He practically sprinted off in the direction of the shuttle, Kylo laughing behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "i'm in administration" what a terrible man 
> 
> does something this short even count as a chapter


	5. Sinker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is overwhelmed, but tries his best to get the information. And gets some other stuff.

Ben was running. He was actually _running_ to keep up with Hux’s pace to the shuttle.

The sheer repressed lust coming from Hux threatened to knock Ben over every time he took a step too close to him, enough that the closer he got the more … cloudy. Things got. He almost understood how post-bug-shot Hux felt – his Force presence was practically on fire, and he was projecting it several feet in each direction.

When he’d had him against the wall Ben could feel _everything_ : he could feel the heat of his own body, he could _see_ himself as Hux was looking at him, he could feel the blush on Hux’s face and the zing of adrenaline when Ben spoke into his ear. He could feel that urge to seek some strange combination of pleasure and violence that didn’t belong to him, the overwhelming, distracting need making Hux’s blood sing through his veins.

Never in his entire life had Ben been with someone who could project their desire so strongly.

It was. A miscalculation on his part. Higher brain function was at a minimum.

Hux stumbled and Ben reached out to catch him like it was second nature – because it was – and a split second before his hands touched Hux’s body he remembered again that this was the fucking _Emperor_ , that this man had committed countless atrocities against the galaxy and against the Republic, that this man had ordered the deaths of millions _millions_ of people and hadn’t even blinked, that judging from the way he fought he’d taken countless lives with his own hands and never lost a minute of sleep –

The second he touched him Hux’s mental state overwhelmed him like a tidal wave, everything was _so warm_ and Ben’s hands felt _so good_ on him, fuck, he smelled so fucking good and he needed him _right now_ –

Shit. Ben’s whole brain was spinning. Feeling his own hands as if they were on _his_ body was – a mindfuck. To say the least. Feeling Hux’s maddening, overwhelming want for him like it was his own was. Something else entirely. It mixed up Ben’s brain and he felt so much hotter, he felt that want like it was his but he also felt Hux’s, separate and aimed at him with such single-minded intensity that Ben felt a pang in his stomach thinking of _his own mouth_.

Fucking hell.

Okay. Okay. He needed to focus. “Observe don’t engage” was clearly out the window, but he could still do this. He could use this.

It also helped (or hurt, Ben wasn’t sure) that at this point in his mental and physical state _not_ fucking the Emperor was literally not an option. Aside from that one time with the Jedi girl when he was younger (and if _that_ hadn’t been a completely sacrilegious use of the Force Ben truly didn’t know what was) Ben had never felt such an overwhelming feedback loop like this. His body just wasn’t _meant_ to want something this much - he was holding his own lust _and_ Hux’s and it just. He wasn’t built for this. But he could use it.

Thank the Force that was the shuttle. Hux’s hands shook as he punched in the code to open it and Ben stood back, caught between an overwhelming desire to push Hux against the door and to get him inside and fucking _naked_ like they should have been a kriffing hour ago.

“Fucking—” Hux was so drunk he was having a hard time pushing the correct buttons. Wait. Ben pushed a little with the Force, not enough to be felt but enough to be sure, and noted that it wasn’t drunkenness that was making Hux like this. It wasn’t even the drugs. He was just so turned on he could hardly function. Ben could see, clear as day, that the fight was on a vivid, daydream-like loop in Hux’s mind, every detail of it overly bright like a fever dream.

Somehow the door opened. Hux stumbled inside looking completely shocked for a second (Ben _might_ have Force-opened the door) before the door closed and the shuttle was dark, lit only by a single red light on the console and the way Hux’s eyes (pupils huge, impossibly, obscenely fat and swollen) looked in that light was. Really something else.

The darkness of the shuttle made everything worse. Or better. Ben still wasn’t sure. It certainly made it easier to feel everything - not that he needed any help there - but it made it more difficult to focus. To remember that he was trying to get information out of –

He didn’t even realize that Hux had unbuttoned his shirt and his pants until he was kissing Ben’s chest with a hand wrapped around his cock, sudden and devastating.

“Oh, shit.” Ben’s brain came to a screeching halt and without thinking about it he did the thing he’d been trying not to do all night - he grabbed the fucking Galactic Emperor by the hair and kissed him on the mouth.  

He tasted like whiskey and, insanely, like _blood_ and it made Ben horribly short of breath. He tasted hot somehow, like the signals in Ben’s brain were getting crossed and his senses didn’t understand each other. He pulled away to get a hold of himself, to put together some semblance of a strategy, but the second he opened his mouth to breathe Hux was on him again. And it was - fuck, it was good. Really good. He felt everything and it was like looking into a hall of mirrors, the feel of his own hot mouth and of Hux’s bounced back at him on an endless loop, felt from both sides, a fire that threatened to burn Ben’s entire mind to ash. Hux moaned into his mouth, tongue impossibly hot and horribly overwhelming, tightened his hand in Ben’s hair in _just_ that way that Ben so loved, and he really was hopelessly lost, there was no way he could do recon like this, until Hux used his other hand to squeeze at the base of Ben’s dick in a way that was really just. Very. Very frustrating. It did, however, just barely jar Ben’s brain enough that the gears started to turn again.

_Okay, Solo, get your shit together._

“Bed,” he panted into Hux’s mouth, pulling away and dropping his head back against the wall when Hux moved his hand (finally, blessedly, _horribly_ ) away from his cock.

Hux took an unsteady half-step back and looked at him and Ben felt a pull in the bottom of his stomach. He was - really. Far too good looking. His hair was in total disarray, distracting in the way it fell on his forehead and into his eyes, his eyes were completely impossible to think about without Ben feeling like he was standing inside an actual incinerator, his mouth was swollen, red, wet from Ben’s, and there was this. Flush. High on his cheeks that Ben desperately wanted to kiss. He wondered if the skin under that blush was warmer than the rest. Someone needed to assassinate this bastard before he took over the entire universe.

“Come on,” Hux slurred, voice pleasantly breathless and warm.

When Hux stepped out of his space Ben felt like he could breathe again, like a cool breeze was finally able to reach his face. He looked around at the dark insides of Hux’s unmarked shuttle, mildly curious about its structure and weaknesses. He made a catalog of what he could see in his head, just for future reference.  

Hux’s room in the shuttle was warm, warmer than the rest of it, and smaller than Ben had anticipated. It smelled like him, a _blue_ sort of smell, a tide of wind and ocean spray that threatened to pull him under it. The way Hux smelled and the way he tasted were jarringly at odds with each other, as if he had two completely separate facets of himself - one a vast, cold, planet-wide ocean and one a raging bloody fire.

Ben looked around for a second and then Hux was on him again, pinning him to the wall of his room, smelling so blue and tasting so red and _fuck_ the drug in Hux’s system was bleeding into his Force presence and Ben had never been good at this part, this shutting down part, this closing himself off to the feelings of other living things, other emotions, other sensations through the Force. It was always his problem; he felt too much. He felt _everything_ like a huge exposed nerve, completely unable to control the flood of the Force around him when it felt like this. It was why he’d never become a Jedi, why he’d left his training and become a pilot and a smuggler like his father.

He tried, though. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, tightened his hands where they gripped at Hux’s hips under his shirt and focused on that, on the feeling of his skin right there in front of him, trying to let the inferno of insane, drug-hazed, violent desire burning through Hux’s whole body just sort of fade into the background. Trying not to focus on it so much. It worked, sort of. He had most of his mind present, at least.

He opened his eyes and got to work.

“Bren,” he said softly, voice lower than before. Hux looked up at him - he was only about an inch shorter than him but Ben felt it when he looked up. “Bren.”

A look crossed Hux’s face that seemed vaguely - disappointed - and Ben had to chuckle at that because _Hux wanted to hear his real name_ and if that wasn’t just fucking hilarious.

He pulled Hux’s t-shirt over his head and dragged his fingers over his skin, mildly surprised (and more than distantly pleased) at the amount of wiry muscle Hux was hiding under there. When he walked Hux backwards until the backs of his knees hit the bed, Hux looked almost like he was going to protest before he just sat down, eyes hot and heavy.

When Ben knelt between his legs at the foot of the bed, though, Hux _did_ protest.

“What - what are you doing?”

Ben grinned and took off Hux’s shoes for him, then his pants. “What’s it look like?”

Hux shook his head. “You - you. You don’t.”  Ben leaned in and dragged his tongue over Hux’s cock through the fabric of his underwear. Distantly through the Force, he felt the muffled heat of his own mouth and the way Hux struggled not to let his eyes roll back in his head. “Ah. You don’t have to-”

“I know that,” Ben whispered into Hux’s bare stomach, hooking his fingers in the waistband of his underwear and pulling them off painfully slow, grinning at Hux’s cock when it nearly hit him in the face.

His grip on the situation was tenuous at best, but as long as he didn’t lose it, he could do this. He just needed to keep the upper hand.  

He leaned in and kissed the insides of both of Hux’s thighs at the same time Hux gripped his hair and said, “It’s just. It’s been. A while and. You shouldn’t –”

Ben reached up and put one hand on Hux’s beautiful chest and pushed him down so he was laying flat on the bed, knees hanging over the edge touching Ben’s shoulders.

Ben ran just one finger up the whole length of him and he shivered. “How long’s it been?”

Hux swallowed audibly. “A while.”

Ben pushed a little with the Force, though he couldn’t push much and still maintain the distance he needed. A year. _A whole fucking year?_

“Well,” Ben grinned up at him and Hux’s hand in his hair tightened. “You’ll just have to think of something boring to distract yourself.” He leaned down and breathed over the head of Hux’s cock.

“Tell me something about that boring job of yours, Mr. Administration.”

“ _Fuck_ , shit.”

Ben took all of him at once, all the way to the back of his throat, and swallowed viciously. His hand on Hux’s chest stayed put, kept him pinned there. There was a violent twist of pleasure to the Force presence he was trying to ignore, but for now he had a safe distance from it.

“Um, ah. Fuck, oh hell.”

Ben pulled off and gave the underside of his cock a rather sloppy kiss. “You’re in administration.”

“Shit. Yes.”   

He kissed him again, this time on the stomach, and wrapped his other hand around Hux’s dick where it was all flushed and spit-slick from Ben’s mouth. He bit Hux’s hip, hard.

Hux moaned, actually moaned, filthy and low in his throat, and the sound of it was so hot and so unexpected that Ben had to squeeze his eyes shut to keep control.

He eased Hux’s dick back into his mouth again, one hand on his chest and the other on his hip, and listened to the little hitches in his breathing.

“Um,” Hux said eloquently. Ben ran his tongue over him and dug his nails into his hip hard enough to leave marks.

“It's not a very - _fuck-_ very exciting job,” Hux said, speaking fast. Ben tried not to grin and set a rhythm that he could feel was going to absolutely devastate him in a few minutes.

“It's. I. There's a lot of. _Kriffin’ hell_ , _Kylo._ Paperwork.”

Ben hummed around him and Hux’s toes curled. He pulled off and stood up, put an arm around Hux’s waist and pulled him all the way onto the bed. Settling onto the bed over him he said, “paperwork, huh?”

Hux nodded, eyes hazy.

“Come on, doesn't anything good ever happen?”

_Are you really holding my uncle?_ Ben wrapped a hand around him and bit his hip again, hard enough to leave teeth marks. Hux gasped, sharp and loud.

“Well, y-yes,” Hux said desperately. “Good things. Happen.” Ben worried at the spot he’d already bitten with his teeth and Hux kept talking, fast and urgent like he couldn't help it, like he desperately needed the distraction.

“We, ah. Sometimes - f-fuck. Find things we need.”

Ben spoke quietly up against the forming bruise on Hux’s hip, tone conversational and uninterested.

“Mm, and you found something you needed recently?” He pressed a kiss to his cock and Hux spoke immediately.

“Yes.” His voice punched almost painfully out of him. “Yes, yes, fuck, _yes._ ”

“Wow,” Ben said, voice amused like he was making fun of him, “must have been something _really_ good.”

Hux huffed a laugh but it cut off into a long, low groan when Ben took him in his mouth again.

“Yes, it was. Shit. Something good.” Hux screwed his eyes shut, clearly trying to focus on something besides Ben’s mouth. His Force presence was getting harder to ignore, threatening to overwhelm Ben with the sheer heat of it. He needed to get Hux to admit this soon, or he was gonna lose control and he wouldn't care whether Hux admitted anything or not.

Ben did something with his tongue that Poe had once referred to as his “trump card.” Hux’s hands left Ben’s hair and he gripped two fistfuls of the sheets, threatening to rip them.

“Kylo, _fuck_ , stop or I’m gonna-”

Ben hummed and gripped Hux’s hips harder.

“Oh, shit, oh fuck, um. Yeah, um. Something- fucking, something good at work, um. Yep, got the - got the guy. The, fuck. Shit. The thing. We’ve been looking for. Kylo _,_ please, come on.”

Ben pulled off and took his hand off Hux’s chest. _Got him._

“The guy you’ve been looking for?”

Hux sat up desperately, hair a complete disaster, pupils so huge his eyes looked black, flush inappropriately lovely on his cheeks. He looked. Well, Ben wasn’t exactly jumping on any grenades or taking one for the team doing this.

“Uh, yes. I mean. No, I um.” He ran a hand through his hair and it stood up, sweat-damp in a way Ben hadn’t noticed. He cleared his throat, Force-presence evening out where it had been almost uncontrollable before. “Just a. Rival. An administrative. Rival, you know.”

Luke. Well, that had been simultaneously easier and harder (heh) than he’d thought. Ben bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smirking. _That’s all I needed to know, Emperor._ He opened himself up to Hux’s too-hot Force presence again with something like relief - it had been exhausting trying to keep his distance from it.

Kriff, it hit him like a freighter. How could Hux even function when he was burning like this? Ben bit his lip to keep from moaning at the feeling of it. Hux’s mouth fell open.

Ben looked up at him from where he was hovering over his stomach, traced one finger down Hux’s chest and said, low and drunk from Hux’s projecting, “are you just gonna fuckin’ sit there or are you gonna fuck me?”

The grin that flashed across Hux’s face was frighteningly predatory. Ben could practically feel the heat of it and it made the back of his neck sweat.

Before he really understood, Hux had flipped their positions and was straddling his waist, sitting up and looking around wildly. Ben was on fire; it took a moment to understand what Hux was looking for.

Ben pointed to his pants on the floor. “Pocket.”

Hux launched himself off the bed and rooted around in Ben’s pockets before coming up with a little bottle and quirking an eyebrow at Ben.

“Do you seriously carry lube in your pockets all the time?” He sounded a little less drunk.

Ben shrugged.

“I mean, if you’ve got a problem with it-”

Hux was on him again, lips hot under his ear and one warm slick finger somehow already inside of him - when the fuck had _that_ happened - and Ben was distantly aware of someone making some wounded sort of noise before he realized it was him.

Hux got his other hand around Ben’s cock and said straight into his ear, “you know, you almost had me for a second there.”

Ben gasped, loud like a gunshot, and spoke in a low, strained voice.

“Mm, I _did_ have you.”

Hux was murmuring something into his ear, almost to himself, something that sounded like “relax, baby, relax, Kylo, that’s it,” and Ben’s eyes rolled back in his head when he got another finger into him. His last shred of control over the Force snapped and Hux’s forest fire of a mental state overwhelmed him, he could feel how warm his own body felt under Hux’s hands, the savage urge to undo him that was threatening to eat Hux whole, the uncontrollable way he just _couldn’t seem to stop talking_ , how painfully hard Hux’s cock was and how horribly hot it felt in his own skin and in Hux’s.

By the time Hux had a third finger inside of him Ben was approaching incoherent insanity, and it wasn’t just his own. The mirrored feeling of both of them was nearly too much for him, and he squeezed his eyes shut, overwhelmed.

“H-fuck. Bren. Come on, just do it already.”

Hux leaned forward and kissed the spot where his fingers disappeared inside Ben’s body and said, “shh, you’re fine, just a little more, I gotta get you back for making such a mess of me, don’t I? Shit, Kylo, you’re so fucking beautiful, look at you.”

Ben’s voice cracked when he moaned, so loud he was actually surprised at himself. He could feel how badly Hux wanted this - it was tearing through his body like an electric shock- and he wasn’t sure who had control anymore. It didn’t feel like him, but it didn’t exactly feel like Hux either. Hux’s whole body was shaking.

Finally he pulled his fingers out and Ben whimpered, shuddering and throwing one hand over his face. He suddenly desperately wanted to be on his stomach so he wouldn’t have to look Hux in the eye, but when he tried to roll over Hux grabbed him by the ribs and held him there on his back.

“Oh, no, no no,” Hux said, so low and so quiet Ben could hardly hear the words so much as _feel_ the intent of them through the Force. He kept talking when he sank into him, hands horribly gentle over Ben’s ribcage, bending low over Ben’s ear and whispering, “ _there_ you go, that’s fuckin’. Perfect, sweetheart, fuck. Oh, hell, look at you, shit, you’re so tight, look at you.”

This was torture. Ben could feel both sides like he was _fucking himself_ and the stream-of-consciousness filth coming out of Hux’s mouth, the scorching heat of it, was unbearable. He wasn’t sure what sounds he was making, what faces he was making; he could hardly even hear Hux anymore.

Ben turned to whimper into the pillow and Hux grabbed him by the chin and wrenched his face forward again. He kissed him viciously, violently, all tongue and teeth and blinding intent and tilted his hips _perfectly_ and.

“Shit.”

Ben was a mess, he knew, leaking all over his stomach and biting his lip till it drew blood, desperately trying not to beg Hux to just – fucking touch him –

Almost like he could feel that thought Hux finally, finally, finally wrapped a hand around his cock and leaned down to murmur low into his ear, “fuck, look how filthy you are, what a mess I’ve made of you.”

The sound Ben made was too high and too desperate to be considered a moan; he was dangerously close to coming and he was so far out of control that he didn’t actually know what would happen when he did. Distantly, he hoped it was nothing too obvious. At least the lights were already dim – it might go unnoticed if he smashed them.

Hux took the hand covering Ben’s face and held it tight over his head, leaned in and kissed him again and whispered hot and wet over his mouth, “I wanna see you, I wanna see you when you come, fuck, are you gonna?”

The drag of his words was remarkably different than before, slurred and undignified and blistering, some sort of crass accent leaking into them. Ben got his free hand around Hux’s waist, scratched his nails desperately into his back and pulled him closer, deeper, incoherent and overwhelmed.

Hux didn’t stop talking, and through the Force Ben felt that he _couldn’t_ stop talking, he couldn’t stop moving, his body was completely on fire, desperate and shaking, and he fucked Ben so hard and so deep that the bed creaked, the _metal_ bed frame creaked, threatening to break, and Ben felt like he was going to break and he also felt like Hux was going to break and he could feel the drag of Hux’s cock inside him from both sides, a horribly overwhelming ghost of a touch, at once too much, vice-like and hot, and not enough, just the idea of it touching his mind.

“Please, Kylo _, please_ come for me, baby, shit, look at you, look at that face, don’t you wanna come all over yourself while I’m here inside you?” Hux’s voice was hypnotic and low, urgent and desperate and so unlike anything else he’d said all night, “Come on; make a mess of yourself while I’m fucking you like this. Do it.”

Ben cursed in an incoherent jumble of languages and came, vision going white at the edges, scratching bloody marks into Hux’s back and moaning until his voice cracked.

“Fuck, that’s fuckin’ gorgeous, Kylo,” Hux said against Ben’s sweaty temple, fucking him mercilessly where he was still shaking, oversensitive and twitchy, making it impossible for him to come down. He just. Wouldn’t. Stop.

Hux braced one hand over Ben’s head and the other on his hip, hitched his legs up higher and fucked him until tears welled up in Ben’s eyes, soaking his hair at his temples.

He didn’t say anything else but when he came he sat _up_ instead of wrapping his arms around Ben like he’d expected him to, pulled Ben’s hips forward with both hands, crushing bruises into his skin, stilled where he was impossibly deep inside him and tilted his head back, mouth open and an impossibly vulnerable sound punching out of him, body one long beautiful pale line from his upturned jaw all the way to his cock inside Ben.

After a second he gingerly pulled out and collapsed next to Ben on the bed, grinning.

Ben looked sideways at him and held out his hand for a high-five, but Hux rolled his eyes and kissed him, warm and happy and oddly heart-wrenching. Hux was covered in sweat and the heat of his Force-presence had simmered somewhat, but was still pleasantly warm. He looked at Ben for a while and didn’t say anything, made no move to clean himself up, just laid there and looked.

Ben knew he should get up but. He was so warm and. Hux was so warm next to him, and just for one second he thought he’d close his eyes.  

 

Ben woke up a few hours later with Hux sprawled out on his stomach next to him. It would have been so easy to kill him like that, and for a second he actually truly thought about it, but. Something stopped him. And besides, that wasn’t his mission. He’d gotten the confirmation he needed and he _should_ just go - but he didn’t. He slipped out of the bed, into his clothes and into the shuttle’s cockpit, muffling his movements with the Force, keeping an eye on Hux’s Force-presence to make sure he was still asleep.

His mother was going to be furious. She would have gotten the intel and gotten out of there, quick and diplomatic and efficient, and Ben should have done the same, he was _her son_ -

Only problem was, he was his father’s son too.

He got onto his hands and knees, crawled under the pilot’s side of the console and opened up the mess of wires for most of the shuttle’s electronic controls. He grinned and flipped the nav controls so they were upside down, reversed the settings for take-off and landing, and switched the hyperdrive activation for the air conditioning. And just for good measure, he went to the shuttle’s computer and downloaded the positions of all its stops in the past year. Ben was pretty sure the General already knew where Starkiller II was, but it couldn’t hurt to be positive. He put all the panels back and sat up to survey his work.

Couldn’t even tell he’d been there.

The Solo part of Ben didn’t like that, so he went back into Hux’s room and wrote a little note on his refresher mirror, grinning to himself, and then took off his underwear and dropped them on top of Hux where he slept. He had to bite his lip to keep from giggling, then he turned tail and _ran._

The Falcon was exiting atmo when Ben felt Hux notice. Remarkably clear for this distance, even through Tarma’s atmosphere and two ships, Hux’s rage was absolute and devastating. Brighter than anything Ben had felt in years, perhaps in his whole life. He grinned to himself and set his coordinates for the Resistance base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hellooooooooooooo everyone <3 i love you. you're so wonderful and nice. tell me all your thoughts and fears and desires. 
> 
> hux talks a lot when he's drunk 
> 
> i have a tumblr now and it's here:  
> https://francisthegreat.tumblr.com/


	6. Fallout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux reads Ben's note. He redefines our small-minded notions of the word "anger."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's a little vicious and everyone's mad just fyi

Hux woke up feeling altogether better than expected. He had a distinct lack of a hangover, he’d slept remarkably well (thanks to Kylo) and he felt more relaxed than he had in almost a year (thanks to Kylo).

When he turned over to find the bed empty Hux allowed himself one fleeting moment of mild disappointment before being pleased. Morning-afters were never Hux’s thing – they were an awkward, uncomfortable navigation around each other that he absolutely despised. So, really, he was glad Kylo was gone.

It was a bit odd, though, that Kylo had dropped his underwear on top of him before he left. Hux’s first reaction was that it felt … insulting in a way he couldn’t quite place, but he figured it was probably meant to be flirtatious.

He stretched, yawned, and scratched at his head, hair all over the place. It would be a relief to be able to shower and get back into some respectable clothes, but he was most looking forward to getting his kriffing hair out of his eyes. It had a terrible habit of falling over his forehead when he didn’t mess with it. It made Hux feel … common. He shuddered.

The shuttle was quiet, so he figured Phasma hadn’t made it back yet. He checked the time (early) got out of bed and headed to the refresher, looking forward to being less dusty. And sweaty. He reeked of sex. Hux grinned to himself and opened the door –

Every single thought in his mind came to a screeching halt as he stared at the note on the mirror. In huge red letters (- was that  _ lipstick _ ? -) scrawled across the mirror was:

_ My Dear Starkiller, _

_ Thanks for last night. Really hit the spot (so to speak). Be seeing you! _

_ Xx, _

_ “Kylo” _

Hux spluttered. He blinked. He spluttered some more. There was one beautiful, glorious moment where he had no idea what was going on, and then it slotted horribly into place. Starkiller _.  _ There was only one group of people who still called him that.

The motherfucking Resistance.

Hux did something he hadn’t done since he was a hormonal teenager – he punched the mirror.

“Shit!”

His hand was in worse shape than he’d realized, bruised across his knuckles and now cut all to hell from the mirror. All at once, he remembered the bar, the fight – how he’d stood back to back with a Resistance spy. Hux felt sick. He would most certainly not think about the rest of the evening, about how good that backstabbing lying whore had smelled, how good he had tasted, about his hands holding him against the alleyway wall, about how warm and wet Kylo’s mouth was –

_ Come on, doesn’t anything good ever happen at that boring job? _

“Mother _ fucker. _ ”

Hux made a fist with a shard of glass still sticking out of his hand, blood dripping onto the floor. He was shaking. The inside of his mind felt like the core of a planet, horribly dense and bright and hot with rage. 

Someone was going to pay.

He threw on his filthy jacket and ran a hand through his hair, smearing blood through it and over his forehead, before striding out of the shuttle.

He passed Phasma on his way back to the cantina, looking very smug before catching Hux’s expression. She squinted at him.

“What the hell happened to you?”

Hux said nothing. He walked past her, barely able to control the shaking of his hands. Phasma whirled around and yelled at his back.

“Hey! Hey! What the fuck?”

Hux kicked in the cantina door, watching as the lock broke off inside the wall. The bartender was a different one from last night. He’d been cleaning the bar when Hux broke the door down and was now pointing a Wookie bowcaster at Hux’s chest – likely the same one the other bartender had been wielding last night.

“Stop right there, asshole. Cantina’s closed.”

Hux didn’t stop. Leaking blood onto the floor, hands balled into fists, blood streaked through his hair and smeared on his face, he walked right up to the bar and glared at the bartender until the bowcaster shook in his hands.

“H-hey man. I said we’re closed.”

Hux still said nothing, just stared into the bartender’s watery blue eyes. The bartender lowered the bowcaster.

“What do you want?”

Hux knew the backstabbing whore probably didn’t frequent this place, and he also knew that if this bartender were a Resistance sympathizer he wouldn’t get any information looking for him, so he asked the next best thing.

“Human, weird accent. About this tall,” Hux gestured with his bloody hand. “Calls himself Bala-Tik. Looked like scum, so I assume he’s a regular at this…” Hux looked around and curled his lip. “Establishment.” 

The bartender looked almost relieved before he raised his eyebrows and said in a low voice, “Look, man, if you’ve got beef with the Guavian Death Gang, I’m gonna give you some advice – leave it.”

Hux looked up from where he’d been picking glass out of his knuckles. The bartender shuddered.

“Uh, y-yeah. I know where he is. Not for free, though.”

Hux reached over and took the bowcaster out of his hands, inspected it for a moment (he’d never used one before), catalogued all its components, and then systematically disassembled the whole thing.

It was muscle memory from his days as a sniper when he was young, and most guns were set up similarly. Really it wasn’t that hard, but it did get his point across. The bartender’s eyes bugged out of his head as he looked at the bowcaster’s pieces strewn across the bar.

“Hey, man, come on that’s –”

Hux reached forward and grabbed the bartender by the front of his shirt. The diplomacy had been burned out of him.

“Where.”

“He’s not here, man, I swear!”

Hux dragged the bartender closer, almost nose to nose, and the bartender’s eyes flicked up to the blood in Hux’s hair.

“Do I need to repeat myself?”

The bartender threw up his hands. “The Guavians have a little piece of unoccupied space, man. Got a big salvage ship over there, that’s where Bala-Tik is. He’s not here, he’s not here.”

Hux released him and looked around for a piece of paper. There wasn’t one, but he was pretty sure all aspects of this betrayal were being permanently branded into his memory.

“Tell me the coordinates.”

“That’s a shit ton of numbers, man, I don’t know them off the top of my—”

“Then find them,” Hux said, voice low and menacing, “quickly.” 

 

When Hux walked out of the Tarma Cantina there was only a little more blood on his person than there had been when he’d arrived. Phasma was leaning against the wall, waiting for him. She kept pace with him on the way back to the shuttle. There were a few blessed moments of silence before she couldn’t contain herself anymore.

“So…”

Hux said nothing.

“I…take it…that guy from last night—”

“Shut the fuck up, General.”

Phasma blinked. They boarded the shuttle and both walked into the cockpit in silence. Hux sat down in the pilot’s seat and froze.

“Something’s not right.”

Phasma made a face as she flipped a few levers. “Yeah, I can see that, asshole. You look like someone just kicked your cat.”

Hux glared at her before turning back to the chair. “This is…in a different position than I left it.”

Phasma laughed in his face and prepared them for takeoff. 

Takeoff...did not go as planned. It took an extra hour to even get off the ground, and another 2 hours aimlessly floating through space with the air conditioning on high and some horrible song blaring through the ship’s comm system before they fixed the hyperdrive and nav settings. 

Finally, finally, they both settled back into their seats in silence. Hux opened his mouth to say --

“Don’t say it.” 

Hux shut his mouth and then opened it again. “I didn’t say anything.” 

“You were going to say ‘I told you so’ about your stupid chair being in a different position.” 

Hux raised an eyebrow and remained silent, eerily calm. Mostly because he was so full of transcendent rage he had somehow skipped anger and was now hovering somewhere between the Void and what he imagined was probably enlightenment in the Force. His hands were still shaking, but the screaming in his head had dulled to senseless white noise. 

Phasma, of course, ruined it. 

“So.” 

Hux bristled but said nothing. 

“Last night.” 

Hux’s odd, serene rage circled back to anger again. “Before you say anything, might I remind you that I am  _ your fucking Emperor _ , General Phasma.” 

Phasma raised her eyebrows, made an exaggerated frown and nodded very slowly. She stayed wisely silent. Hux picked up the ship’s comm and started to punch in Ren’s private information. 

“Uh, Hux?” 

“What.” 

“This … isn’t a secure line. Which, I know. You know.” 

Hux looked over at Phasma. “If whoever could possibly be listening in on this line wants to meet me, you, and all seven Knights of Ren at the headquarters of the Guavian Death Gang, they can be my fucking guest.” 

“The Guavian - fuck, why-” 

Hux ignored her and connected the comm line. 

Phasma offered no further comments, though she did bug her eyes out a bit, which was about as close as she dared get to rolling them when Hux was angry. 

A dark, low modulated voice picked up the comm. “Emperor.” 

“Ren, how soon can you be at the coordinates I’ve just sent to you?” 

There was a shuffling sound as Ren checked. “One day.” 

“And the rest of your Knights?” 

“You require all of us?” 

Hux narrowed his eyes. “I want to make an impression.” 

“Give me another day to gather the others.” 

That seemed reasonable, and Hux wasn’t in the mood to start a fight, so he said, “very well. Two days. Rendezvous with us at the location I’ve sent you.” 

“As you wish.” 

Hux cut the comm and looked over at Phasma. She stared resolutely ahead, put-upon expression on her face. She flipped a few levers and ran a hand through her hair. 

“Not that you’re  _ asking _ ,” she said, “but I had a lovely time last night, thank you.”

“Wonderful for you, General,” Hux spat. 

Phasma tutted. “You’re not generally so petty, Hux.” 

Hux sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose. He  _ still _ hadn’t gotten to bathe. There was blood on his face that he had completely forgotten about, dried and sticky and pulling at his forehead whenever he frowned. 

“Yes, well.” He leaned back in his seat and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t generally fuck Resistance spies.” 

Phasma’s eyebrows shot up and her mouth opened in slow motion before she clapped a hand over it. There was a muffled, “oh, shit,” through her fingers. 

Phasma got a look like she was very uncomfortable before saying haltingly, “did - did you-”

“Yes.” 

“Anything importa-”

“Yes.”

Phasma closed her eyes and sighed very quietly. 

“Well, we have two days to figure out what we’re going to do about it.” 

Hux nodded grimly. 

 

Two days later saw Hux standing shoulder to shoulder with Senka Ren, folding his arms and glaring at Bala-Tik. Bala-Tik seemed unable to take his eyes off Ren’s vivid, blood orange lightsaber. It probably helped that she was holding it dangerous inches from his ear. 

The entirety of the Knights of Ren were standing in a horrible, menacing cloud behind them, Phasma off to the side with a blaster in each hand. Bala-Tik’s crew - gang - whatever Hux figured they called themselves - were standing against the wall in varying states of fear. No one moved.

“Do I need to repeat myself?” Hux asked, tired of the question, raising an eyebrow at the weapon. 

Bala-Tik glanced at Hux’s face before fixing his eyes on the saber, like a brilliant ray of evening sunlight in the dark of the Guavian ship. He was sweating. 

“Uh, yes, actually. Sorry. I didn’t quite hear the question, mate. Emperor, sir. Your Excellency, sir. On account of that. Terrible humming death ray and all. Sir.” 

Ren tensed next to him, growling low in her throat, but did nothing.  

Hux drew himself up to his full height and curled his lip before saying, “two nights ago, you encountered a man at the Tarma Spaceport Cantina. I need to know his name.” 

“Look, Emperor, there’s a lot of -”

“This one left an  _ impression _ on you.” 

Bala-Tik glanced at Ren’s saber again, the warm, even light of it reflected in his eyes. It made him look impossibly more afraid. Hux continued. 

“Human, long dark hair. Dark eyes, big ears. About this tall.” He gestured. “ _ Freckles _ ,” he spat with an astounding amount of vitriol. Ren actually leaned her head back a little, reveling in it. “Carries an ancient-looking blaster and an attitude problem.” 

Bala-Tik’s eyes lit up in understanding and he looked back at Hux. “Ah, I think I know- Wait. Wait a second.” He looked Hux up and down slowly, realization creeping into his eyes. “Don’t tell me  _ you _ were the-”

“Answer the question, Bala-Tik, or die. It is up to you.” 

Ren took a menacing step closer, somehow taking up more space than Hux despite being a foot shorter. She held out her hand and said, low and deliberate, “I could take it from you, if you prefer.” 

Bala-Tik licked his lips and his eyes flickered frantically from Ren’s mask to her saber to Hux’s stone-cold expression. “It’s, ah. It’s not that I don’t wanna tell you.” Ren’s hand tightened on the lightsaber hilt as he continued, “It’s just that we’ve got a. Reputation to uphold and.” 

“Give me the name and I will give you carte blanche to operate in First Order space, unchecked and protected, for one standard year.” 

Behind him Phasma made a noise, but Hux ignored her. Bala-Tik looked back at Ren, eyes going glassy with fear. Ren crouched down and brought her hand closer to Bala-Tik’s face, threatening. The way her words came through the mask made it sound like she had three voices, all of indistinguishable ages and genders, and when she lowered her voice as she was doing now, the effect was truly monstrous. It raised the hairs on the back of Hux’s neck. 

“Are you hiding anything else in that empty head of yours, Bala-Tik?” 

Hux spoke sharply. “Ren.” 

She looked up. 

“Don’t break him; the name is all we need from him.” 

She stood up again, mask level with his shoulder, and somehow Hux never felt he was looking down at her. It was...disconcerting. She held up her lightsaber as if inspecting it and said, “I  _ want  _ to break him, Emperor.” 

“Yes, I know you do, you terrible creature.” 

“You owe me.” 

“For not letting you unravel this man’s mind?” 

“Yes.” 

Bala-Tik’s expression grew more and more panicked as Hux and Ren had their conversation and finally he just yelled out, “Ben Solo!” 

Both Hux and Ren went very still. 

_ Solo. _

“Solo?” 

Bala-Tik nodded, expression relieved. “Pain in my ass smuggler. Scoundrel. Resident cheeky piece of shit. Flies the Millennium Falcon - sometimes.” 

The man who Hux had spent the night with was. A  _ Solo _ . The same man who had kissed him so desperately, who had left faint, hand-shaped bruises on Hux’s body, whose voice had cracked on Hux’s fabricated name - a Solo.  _ Ben  _ Solo. A Jedi, if rumors were to be believed. A fighter pilot, a smuggler, a spy and a child of the Resistance. He had put his cock inside  _ that _ .  

Hux had been unaware it was even physically possible for him to get angrier than he was before, but he seemed to be breaking all sorts of his own limits as of late. His chest felt itchy and hot, sticky with blood on the inside. He made a fist so tight that the seams of one of his gloves snapped. 

Ren tilted her head toward him and said in a low voice, “oh, that’s quite lovely, Your Excellency.” Her lightsaber hummer a bit louder, seemed to burn a bit brighter. 

Ren’s … fascination with Hux’s baser emotional reactions always unnerved him. It reminded him that she always,  _ always _ knew what he was thinking, and it made him feel … unsettlingly like a battery. Like he was powering her. It was one of the reasons he made a point of avoiding her whenever possible. 

His voice was lower than he expected when he spoke next. 

“Where. Can I find him.” 

Bala-Tik balked at the tone of his voice and threw up his hands. “I don’t fuckin’ know, man. The fucker’s a ghost.” 

Ren suddenly ignited the other end of her lightsaber, previously off, and held it straight out in front of her. She crouched again, bringing the handle up under Bala-Tik’s chin with both ends horribly hot over his shoulders. His jacket started to smoke. 

“Two things, dear,” she said, tone light and conversational save for the horrible overlay of voices through the mask. “One, you will not address the Emperor in such a way.” Bala-Tik nodded, eyes reflecting both burning ends of Ren’s weapon. 

Hux felt a bit smug. 

“Two,” her voice dropped lower, the bass registers of her vocoder rumbling through Hux’s shoes, “you will tell us how to find Ben Solo.”  She gestured behind her at the other Knights. “Or we will end you all.” 

Bala-Tik spared one last look at both ends of the saber and then closed his eyes. “Look, I’m telling the truth. I can’t find him. I only have an encrypted comm line for the fucker and it’s impossible to get his location from it. Believe me, I’ve tried.” 

“You’ve tried,” Hux said, brushing imaginary dust off his coat, “you’ll excuse me if I don’t take you at your word. You may not have noticed, but I’ve got considerably more…” he looked to Ren and her knights, “resources than you.” 

Bala-Tik yelped as the shoulder of his jacket caught fire. Ren didn’t move. 

“Ren.” 

She brought the opposite end of the saber closer to his other shoulder.

“Ren, that’s enough.” 

Her mask turned toward him briefly and he had to suppress the urge to shiver. 

“You will not cause such chaos while I’m aboard this ship.” 

“The Guavians are responsible for the loss of Kala Ren’s arm. This isn’t chaos, Emperor. It’s justice.” She stood and before Hux had even registered that she’d moved, Bala-Tik’s arm was on the ground, jacket attached to it still burning. 

Over the screaming, Hux fixed Ren with a long suffering look and said, “if you’re quite finished?” 

Ren powered off one end of her saber, then the other, tilted her head at him. “Quite.” 

“Bala-Tik, you will provide us with the comm line information. We will use your ship to make contact. Ren,” she looked up at him sharply. “Gather your knights and do what is necessary to ...ascertain his location.” 

Ren laughed. “You truly do not understand the Force, Emperor.” 

Hux narrowed his eyes but said nothing, moving further into the ship. “That is all.” 

Standing at the Comm Station, Hux felt his thoughts drifting toward Solo again. How  _ easily _ he’d trusted him, just because of his face. His body. His voice. The things Hux had  _ said _ to him, had whispered to him in the dark, the things he’d done to him, let Solo -

“Emperor.” 

Hux whipped around to find one of Ren’s other Knights, taller than him and twice as broad, with a voice that sounded horribly high and sweet like a child’s. 

“What?” 

“Your anger. We feel it.” 

Hux bristled, but said nothing, waiting for the Knight to continue. He didn’t. 

“He means it might help,” said Ren. He got the distinct impression that she was grinning when she said, “it’s good.” 

Hux made a fist in the pocket of his coat and took a deep breath. 

“No,” said Ren. “Embrace it.” 

“Not all of us are like you … overemotional  _ savages _ ,” Hux spat. “Some of us are civilized men.” 

Ren hummed, and the sound of it made Hux shiver all the way from the crown of his head to the arches of his feet. “Poor, civilized men,” she said, voice suddenly close and terrible, inside his head and outside it at once. Hux felt an icy shard of fear shoot through his chest.

Phasma walked forward to stand next to Hux, her cool presence almost reassuring with Ren’s terrifying cacophony of anger and fear on his other side. Hux felt a bit more balanced. 

Hux turned to Bala-Tik, who was still cradling the cauterized stump of his shoulder, and said, “make the call.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! just in case you're curious, "Senka" is a Serbian name that means "shadow." cause. ya know.
> 
> ben left the note in lipstick. cause. ya know. 
> 
> anyway let me know your thoughts the fun times/humor will be back next week love you bye


	7. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben Solo: Maker of Bad Decisions

Ben was sitting in the grass at the Resistance base with Finn and Poe, drinking a beer and giving them the (heavily edited) story of how he got the information from the Emperor, when the call came in.

He’d spent the first hour after landing at one of his mother’s boring-as-sin debriefings, and had … maybe … left some things out. It was in everyone’s best interest, really. It _had_ been a bit reckless of him. But it was all in the past now, and there was a squadron headed for First Order space to get Luke within 5 minutes.

The comm that rang was his encrypted one, the one he only gave to his less-than-savory contacts, and before he even saw the information he was pretty sure it was Bala-Tik. He grinned at Poe and Finn. Poe raised an eyebrow at him.

“Bala-Tik?” he asked.

Ben nodded, letting the comm ring a few more times. He took a sip of his beer.

“He’s probably pissed at me cause I ran into him at the Tarma Cantina.”

He answered and audio came through before the holo, as it always did with this comm. Old piece of space junk.

“Yello.”

“Ben Solo.”

Several things happened at once. Poe’s eyes went so wide it was frightening and he dropped his beer, Finn grabbed Poe’s hand with both of his and opened and closed his mouth a few times, and Ben felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

“Uh,” he said in a poor imitation of his father, “who’s this?”

The voice on the other line said, horribly cold and low, “You know very well who.”

Before holo came on Ben gestured frantically for Poe and Finn to take a few steps back, so they wouldn’t be seen. They both scrambled backwards, at a loss for words. Ben made another gesture for something to write with.

Finn pulled a datapad out of his jacket pocket and Ben set it on the ground, just off to the side where it wouldn’t be detected, so that Poe and Finn could see it.

“Uh,” Ben said again. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Fear was not going to help. Not to mention he wasn't terribly afraid; in fact, he was pretty excited.

Plus, it was in Ben’s nature - he had to fuck with him. Just a little.

Poe caught sight of the expression on Ben’s face and shook his head frantically. Ben rolled his eyes.

“Hey, there, Starkiller.”

Finn took his hands off Poe and slapped them over his own mouth.

Hux said nothing on the other end, and Ben figured he had about a minute before he got visuals turned on. He typed a message on the datapad and Poe and Finn leaned forward to see.

**Get General.**  

Finn scrambled to get up and bolted in the direction of Leia’s office.

“Say, uh, Starkiller, how come you’ve got Bala-Tik’s frequency?”

Hux’s icy voice said, “Bala-Tik and I had a chat about you.”

Ben’s stomach twisted. “Did you? You know it’s not nice to gossip.”

From some distance away, Bala-Tik’s voice said, “you owe me an arm, you-”

Something cut him off. Ben looked at Poe, expression grim. There was a horrible humming sound coming off the comm, something terribly familiar and before Ben could register anything else Bala-Tik was screaming again.

Hux’s voice turned away from the mic and said, “Ren, I did not agree to both arms. Get yourself under control, you’ve a job to do.”

_Ren_. Ben typed **Senka Ren** onto the data pad and Poe shook his head hard. He reached forward, crossed it out and wrote: **Rey**.

The holo flickered on. Fuck, Hux looked absolutely furious. Ben could hardly believe this was the same man from the cantina, but just peeking out of the collar of his stupid, overly ornamental coat was the clear outline of Ben’s teeth.

Poe leaned forward and squinted at the holo, looked up at Ben’s expression, and looked back at the holo. He widened his eyes and mouthed, “you didn’t.” Ben gave a tiny shrug and Poe put his head in his hands.

“So,” Ben said, leaning back on his elbows, bare feet kicked out in front of him in the grass. “You missed me?”

Hux’s eyes narrowed. His expression was so murderous it actually changed the whole shape of his face. His eyes had that same insane ignition-flame look as they had during the cantina fight. Ben wasn’t sure if he was afraid or mildly aroused; it might have been both. It was often both, if he was being honest with himself.  

“I wanted you to know,” Hux said, putting his arms stiffly behind his back at parade rest, “I’m coming for you.”

Something that was equal parts fear and pure excitement thrilled through Ben’s chest. He bit his lip and watched Hux’s eyes flicker over the movement.

“Good luck.”

Finn and Leia came into view walking _very_ fast, Leia typing furiously on her data pad. The one in front of Ben chimed.

**Stall. Troops extracting Luke now.**

“Say, there, uh, Starkiller?”

“I prefer Emperor.”

Ben smiled. “I bet you do.”

Hux narrowed his eyes and shifted his weight. Ben thought of a bird of prey again, and a not-entirely-unpleasant shiver ran through him.

“How’d take-off go in that shuttle of yours?”

Hux visibly ground his teeth together but still said nothing, looking off to the side before fixing his eyes back on Ben. Ben pushed.

“Did you like my song choice?”

Hux’s eye twitched. He was … absurdly lovely when he was this angry. Ben should have probably been more concerned with that thought than he was. As it stood at the moment, he was. Kind of having a great time, if he was being honest. Though Poe, Finn, and his mother looked - less like they were having a great time. Poe had his head in his hands again, Finn was squinting from Hux to Ben over and over again with a confused look on his face, and Leia had that expression that told Ben she was about to figure things out and she would _not_ be pleased.

“Hey, that huge hot blonde lady with you at the bar?” Ben said, folding his legs under him in the grass, “was that General Phasma?”

Hux closed his eyes for a second and then said, “yes,” in a flat voice.

_Determine how many of First Order top brass is missing from Starkiller II._ “Is she with you? I’d like to ask her something.”

Phasma stepped closer, holo of her towering form standing next to Hux on the grass. Ben shot a look at Leia and she nodded.

This was better than they could have dared to hope. Extracting Luke with Ren, Hux _and_ Phasma all missing from the base was unprecedented. No one had expected it to go so easily. If they were all there to make an impression on Ben during this call, he thought maybe someone should thank him.

Ben looked at Phasma and smirked. Poe raised his head out of his hands, looked at Ben’s expression and started rubbing his temples like he had a headache.

“General,” Ben said, “you owe me a-” He cut off, looking up at his mother. “A dance,” he finished carefully.

Phasma smiled, clearly mildly amused by the whole situation. “Oh, that’s alright, Solo,” she said. “I think His Excellency _danced_ with you enough for all of us.”

Hux looked sharply at Phasma and she bit her lip, trying not to laugh. Ben smiled. Maybe he should have...danced with her after all. Clearly she was the fun one.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ben said, looking at his nails, forgetting his friends and his mother for a moment, “I think it was a bit of a lackluster performance.”

Leia gasped quietly, turned to Poe and mouthed the words, “he didn’t.” Poe just closed his eyes and nodded, long-suffering expression on his face.

It was hard to tell on the holo, but Hux looked like he’d been going redder as Ben talked, and at the words “lackluster performance” he was certain Hux flushed scarlet. Truly Ben couldn’t believe Hux hadn’t ended the call by now.

Wait.

Why _hadn’t_ Hux ended the call? He’d said what he wanted to say, so why was he just standing there letting Ben berate him in front of his subordinates?

Ben realized why the Knights of Ren were there at the same time Leia did; he felt her realization through the Force. She generally only projected things at him when it strategically benefitted her - she was much better at hiding her thoughts and emotions in the Force than Ben was.

She crouched down and typed on the data pad: **Can she find you**

Could she? No. Ben was positive. Even with all the Knights, there was nothing, _nothing_ tying him to this comm frequency. Certainly nothing of his Force presence. He and Luke had tested it out themselves, had made absolutely sure a Force-user couldn’t do exactly what the Knights were trying to do now.

Ben leaned forward and said, “Starkiller?” at the same time he typed **No** on the data pad for Leia to see. “Got anything to add?”

Hux bristled. “I will find you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ben said, waving his hand. “You’re coming for me. I got it.”

He was about to turn it off when Leia got a message. She opened it, eyes flying over the words and then leaned down to type on the data pad, **Need 2 minutes.**

_Shit._ Ben was out of things to say. Or at least, he was out of things he wanted to say in front of his mother. Well, he supposed, this was war, after all. And war was full of sacrifices.

Fuck, he was gonna get so much shit for this.

“You know,” Ben added idly, leaning forward on his elbows, “I’ve got two questions for you, Starkiller.”  

A vein in Hux’s forehead pulsed every time Ben called him that, and he just couldn’t help himself. Hux stared straight ahead and said, “What.”

Ben scratched at his own jaw. “Why’d you ditch the beard? It’s a very good look on you. Real, uh, _danceable_.” Ben winked. “Can’t say I’ve ever wanted a dance more.”

Hux blinked. Ben leaned back and waved his hand and said, “Course, then it turned out you were a terrible dancer. Out of practice, I think.”

“Enjoy this now, Solo, because when I find you -”

“Other question,” Ben said, voice loud and cheerful. “When you say you’re coming for me.”

Poe covered his whole face. Finn finally, finally understood what was going on and put a hand over his mouth, and Leia gripped Finn’s shoulder to keep standing.

“Because last time you said that, you meant -”

“That is _enough_.”

Ah. That seemed to be it. Ben hoped Leia’s men had done what they needed to do to get Luke off the base undetected because this call was about to end. Hux was shaking, his whole body pulled taught like a wire. His face was so red Ben could see it on the holo. Ben smiled and spoke, voice soft, thinking back to what Hux had whispered to him that night.

“Oh, Starkiller, look what a mess I’ve made of you.”

An expression of pure disgust curled Hux’s lip for a brief moment before he seemed to shake it off. He took a step forward, rage radiating from his whole body. If Ben was being honest it was … kind of working for him.

“I will find you,” Hux said, voice dangerous and low. “And you will bleed for this. You have my word.”

Ben grinned with all his teeth and clapped his hands together. “Can’t wait.”

Hux turned on his heel, movement vicious, and the call ended.

Ben was left sitting in the grass with a wistful expression on his face. He looked up at Leia, Finn and Poe, all looking confused - well, except Leia. She looked pissed off. And Poe. He didn’t look confused at all. Really it was just Finn who looked confused. Ben shrugged and grimaced good-naturedly.

“Uh,” he said, toes curling in the grass, “I can explain?”

 

He had another debriefing. Inevitably. And a very, very serious talking-to. Mostly it was - Mom related. Leia was absolutely furious. Ben did his best to block it out, actually, after Leia hesitantly said the phrase “need to know your sexual _exploits_ , Benjamin” in a scandalized voice.

Poe and Finn had been more forgiving. After the (second, worse) debriefing Ben had retreated back to his spot on the grass for another beer, and Poe and Finn had sprawled out next to him. Poe fixed him with a look when he settled in.

“So,” Poe said, sitting closer to Finn than was strictly necessary. “The Emperor.”

Ben nodded, downing half his beer at once.

Finn’s eyes were wide and earnest as he took a bottle straight out of Poe’s hand. “What - uh. What was it? Like?”

Ben laughed and looked down at the bottle in his hands, said, “Like I said, awful.” He took another long drink and thought about the drag of Hux’s fingernails over his skin. “The things we do for the Resistance, huh?”

The three of them watched the sun go down and built a little fire to keep the bugs off, getting progressively more drunk as the night went on. Ben lifted his - tenth? Twelfth? He’d lost count - latest empty beer bottle up with the Force and dropped it into the fire. Finn giggled, leaning heavily against Poe’s side and resting his head on Poe’s shoulder. Poe kept looking at him out of the corner of his eye, like he couldn’t believe Finn was really there.

Finn fell asleep with his head in Poe’s lap and Poe actually blushed.

Drunkenly, Ben gestured to Finn and said, “so, that?”

“What?”

“Finn and you. That’s a thing that’s happening?”

“Oh,” Poe said, looking down at Finn’s closed eyes, face softening immediately. “No. No. It’s - no. I mean.”

Ben grinned, unwisely grabbed another beer. He cracked it open and said, “you want it to?”

Poe gestured at Finn’s general person and whispered, “well, _yeah_.”

Ben smiled at him and held out his bottle. Poe tapped it with his own. “Cheers, buddy.”

They sat in silence for a while, drinking and watching the stars and listening to the fire. Finn was snoring from his place on Poe’s lap, one arm slung over Poe’s legs. The look on Poe’s face made Ben’s chest hurt a little.

That last beer must have been the final straw, because Ben looked up at the sky after he tossed the empty bottle and realized he was very drunk indeed.

“Poe,” he slurred, clumsily pushing his hair behind his ears. “I have a. Confession to make.”

Poe was leaning back on his elbows, head hanging backward looking up at the sky. “Hm?”

“About Starkiller.”

Poe sat up carefully, trying not to disturb Finn where he slept, drooling on Poe’s clothes.

“Yeah?”

“Remember how … I said he was awful?”

Poe got a dark look. “Yeah.”

“He, uh.” Ben scrubbed a hand over his face and tried not to remember the flush on Hux’s chest, the bright orange of his hair or the strange, translucent sea-green of his eyes, tried not to remember the way he’d whispered - _look how filthy you are, what a mess I’ve made of you_.

“I. He wasn’t. Awful.” Ben said.

Poe sighed and threw his empty bottle into the fire. “Shit, Benny.”

“Actually,” the beer said with Ben’s mouth, “he was. Poe, he was. Fucking incredible.”

Poe reached for another beer, shaking his head. He was blushing, but it seemed like it was mostly from the alcohol. And maybe Finn.  

Poe lowered his voice to barely a whisper and slurred, “Better than me?” Ben looked away. Poe frowned. “Never mind, don’t answer -”

“Better than _anyone_ ,” Ben said desperately. “Better. Than anyone. Fuck.”

“Okay, I get it. That’s. Shit, I mean that’s not ideal.”

“Poe, I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve never come so hard in my entire goddamn life.”

Poe looked momentarily insulted. He brought one hand down to rest on the top of Finn’s head, a soft smile creeping back onto his face. Ben smiled at the two of them, a bit of the panic leaking out of his chest.

“What do I do?”

“Forget about it, I guess. Try to remember the countless horrific atrocities he’s committed.” Poe shrugged. “Probably shoulda tried that before getting into bed with him, but hey.”

Ben pointed a drunk finger at him and said, “ _You_ of all people cannot judge me on my sexual partners, flyboy.”

Poe squinted at him. “Huh?”

“What?”

“Like, maybe 3 of those words were in Basic.”

Ben giggled a little. “Aaaand, that’s my cue to go the fuck to bed. Language mashing. Means I’m. Too drunk.”

Poe nodded. “Night, buddy. Try not to beat yourself up too much about the Starkiller thing. Sometimes bad people are good fucks, I get it. Just.” He paused. “Try and forget it, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Poe tossed him something shiny from the grass. “You forgot your comm.”

Shockingly, Ben caught it.

“You gotta destroy that puppy like, yesterday, you know.”

“Hm? Oh. Yeah, my mom said the same thing.”

“Cause Starkiller’s got your number now, Benny boy.”

Ben’s stomach dropped. The possibility of Hux contacting him again - it was. Terrifying, said the rational part of his brain. It was terrifying and awful and he should destroy this one and only means of communication with him. He should forget all about this whole thing, should most certainly never involve himself with the Emperor again. He actually told his mother he’d destroy it, at the horrible debriefing.

Without really thinking too hard about why, Ben put the comm safely in his pocket and went to his room.

He was climbing drunkenly into bed, head spinning, when the comm - just - _rang_. It fucking rang. Just an audio call, no holo, and somehow Ben just knew it was Hux. Ben stared at it with wide eyes, alone and drunk in his room and unsure about how to proceed. He couldn’t tell anyone because he didn’t know how to answer the question of why he still had the comm in the first place, why he hadn’t destroyed it immediately like he’d been instructed to.

The smart thing to do would be to ignore the call and destroy the comm then and there, in his bedroom. That would have been. The smart thing.

Ben reached over and insanely, irresponsibly, answered the comm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys, i love you all so much. these chapters are so fun to write. please come yell at me on tumblr about what should happen next. https://francisthegreat.tumblr.com/


	8. A Very Bad Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends shouldn't let friends drunk dial their arch enemies.

Hux was drunk.

He was in his quarters, on his way back to Starkiller II, and he was drunk.

The conversation with Solo had gone - terribly. The Knights hadn’t gotten a kriffing thing on his location, the useless creatures, and the First Order’s most valuable prisoner Skywalker had been jailbroken while Hux and his team were. On a pirate ship listening to Ben Solo insult Hux’s sexual prowess.

The worst part about Skywalker, of course, was that Hux had _known_ they’d be coming for him. He’d tripled security. And then he’d turned around and taken every major commanding officer off the ship. For no reason other than to support his own vain rage.

So Hux had done the only thing he could do, stuck on the shuttle as he was, which was drink. And wait until they arrived at the base the next day.

He wasn’t sure what possessed his very intoxicated brain to dial the encrypted comm number again, on his own personal (secure) line no less, but before he knew it there he was. Sitting at his desk with a half empty bottle of brandy, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, hair in his eyes, calling Ben Fucking Solo.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting - radio static, mostly. Maybe some sort of error message.

He certainly wasn’t expecting him to _pick up_.

“Hello?”

Fuck, his voice. In the dark of his quarters after half a bottle of brandy, Hux could admit his voice still sounded - the same. As that night in the cantina. Just as dark, just as close. Just as warm.

“Fucker,” Hux spat, more slurred than he’d have liked.

“Staaarkiller.”

Hux raised his eyebrows, leaning heavily on his desk. “Are you drunk?”

“Psht. Yes. Are you?”

Hux scowled. “Perhaps a bit.”

Solo was silent on the other end of the line for a moment. “What do you. Want?”

Hux didn’t know. He was so drunk and his room was so dark, somehow it made everything seem...surreal. Soft. Escapable, like it wasn’t really happening. Like he could say anything.

“Lackluster. Performance.” Hux said, taking another long gulp of brandy. “I truly. Fucking hate you.”

Solo laughed. “Ah, I may have, uh. Stretched the truth a little.”

“Oh?”

“Mm.”  

Hux said nothing else and waited for Solo to continue.

“Maybe. Not _that_ lackluster.” There was the sound of shifting, like Solo was moving around. Getting comfortable. Hux’s brain told him to hang up on this backstabbing whore Resistance spy right now, but he didn’t. He took another drink and rested his head in his hands.

Solo’s voice said, “Truthfully?”

Hux snorted. “Do you even know how to tell the truth?”

“Truthfully I’ve never come like that in my life,” Solo slurred, voice quiet.

Hux said nothing, ignoring the swooping heat in his belly. This was his sworn enemy now, and he had nothing further to say to him.

“What are you thinking right now, Starkiller?”

Hux shut his eyes, furious again. “I’m thinking,” he said, slow and careful like he always did when he drank, “I’m thinking about. What I’m going to do with you. When I _fucking_ find you.”

Solo hummed, lower than Hux expected. He sounded … pleased.

“You sound angry.”

Hux barked a laugh. “You could say that.”

Solo sighed and said, “Fuck, you sound _really_ angry.”

There was something about the tone of his voice that Hux didn’t - entirely - hate. Breathless and soft in a way that turned Hux’s stomach, but also in a way that made his toes curl a little bit.

“Listen to me, Solo,” Hux said, brandy bringing out the accent he’d rather forget. “You are going to pay. I promise you that.”

“It’s Ben.”

“Excuse me?”

His voice was so soft and slurred it was hard to hear him. “You can. You can call me Ben. Since, you know. Your dick’s been inside me.”

A jolt ran through Hux. He thought, _I really should end this call right now_ at the same time he said, “I don’t think we’re on a first name basis. In fact, we aren’t on any name basis. I haven’t even been calling you Solo in my head.” Fuck, why did he say that out loud? Maybe Solo wouldn’t -

“You’ve been thinking about me?”

Shit.

“Only in contemplating your grisly torture and dismemberment.”

Solo laughed. He said something in a language Hux didn’t understand, rolling and guttural. The sound of it raised the hairs on the back of Hux’s neck, and his chest squeezed uncomfortably.

“Excuse me?” Hux said.

Ben cleared his throat and said, “I said, big words for a drunk man.”

Hux took another drink in response, unable to believe he was even having this conversation, embarrassed and furious and oddly, frustratingly aroused.

“What have you been calling me? In your. Uh, head?”

Hux answered truthfully. “Backstabbing whore.”

Solo made a thoughtful noise. “Not sure I mind the ‘whore’ bit, actually, Starkiller.”

Hux cleared his throat, chest inexplicably tight. Once he was sure his voice wasn’t going to crack, he said, “disgusting.”

Solo - the backstabbing whore, Hux reminded himself - made a. Noise. That Hux’s drunk brain tried very hard to ignore.

“You're a mean man, Starkiller,” Solo said, voice horribly breathless and quiet. Hux said nothing, frozen in place by the tone of his voice, a seed of apprehension growing in his stomach.

“You know what? I shouldn't have -” Solo hiccuped. “Had that last beer.”

There was something almost _charming_ about that and Hux sat back in his seat, furious with himself. He should turn it off, he should hang up.

“I’ve. Been thinking about your. Face, you know,” Solo said. “They told me not to think.” Another hiccup. “About it anymore but.” He sighed, soft and high, and Hux felt a terrible swooping sensation in his chest. “I keep doing it. It's - your face when you -”

He cut himself off. Hux breathed a sigh of relief and let go of the white-knuckle grip he’d had on his desk. Okay. He wasn't talking anymore, Hux could _think_ again, he could hang up and devise a plan on how to catch him-

On the other end of the line Ben (the backstabbing _whore_ , Hux told himself again, the traitor, the _spy_ ) groaned, quiet and low and absolutely unmistakable.

Hux froze. Again.

End the call. End it. Just hang up.

Instead, he opened his mouth and said, “are-”

He stopped. _Don't_ , he thought. Don’t.

“Are you-”

Hux bit the inside of his cheek and slammed a fist down on the table. _Just hang up_.

“Am I what, Starkiller?”

Stars, his voice was dark. _Dangerous_ , his brain was screaming at him. _Dangerous_ , _dangerous_. “Are. You.” No. No, unacceptable.

“Ask the question, Hux.”

_Hux_. He'd wanted to know so desperately what it would sound like in that voice, murmured hot into the dark exactly like it was now, and the sound of it sent a full body shudder through him. He had the unshakable impression that he was about to step over a line it would be impossible to come back from. He asked the question.

“Are you touching yourself?”

Ben laughed, high and soft and a little insane, and Hux had the impression that Ben had crossed a line as well. “What do you think?”

“I don’t care.”

“Liar,” Ben whispered, actually _whispered_ like it was a secret, and Hux supposed it was. He was gripping the desk again with both hands, knuckles white and hands shaking. He really, really needed to end the call.

“Wish I could see your face right now,” Ben said, still whispering, and the sound of it was harsh in the quiet of his room, somehow glaring and indecent in a way his speaking voice hadn’t been. It made Hux shiver, made him look over his shoulder to make sure he was alone. Ben was still talking. “Bet you’re so fucking angry.”

There wasn’t anything about that sentence that should have made Hux blush, but - the way he said it. The little hitch in his voice at the end, the drunken slur of his words, the _whisper_ like he was speaking right into Hux’s ear.

The back of Hux’s neck was sweating. He didn’t move his hands from their grip on the desk. He said nothing. Of course he was angry. Of course he was going to find him. Of course he was going to make him pay. Solo knew that.

“Tell me something, Starkiller,” he said, voice catching again. Hux didn’t speak. He didn’t move, he didn’t breathe. He felt somehow like a cornered animal.

“When you catch me,” Ben - Solo - the _backstabbing whore_ said, “is it going to hurt?”

Hux gritted his teeth and hissed “yes,” before he could stop himself. His anger was so hot over his skin he felt like he was going to burst into flames. He ought to check the temperature in his quarters.

Ben let out a shaky breath, and something about the sound of it was so completely filthy it made Hux flush all the way to his toes.

What the fuck was _happening_?

“You could kill me,” he said, a little louder, a little faster. “I’ve seen you fight, _fuck_ , I bet you could - you could kill me.”

Hux realized his hands were shaking so hard he couldn't hold the desk properly. He reached for the comm, shaking hand hovering over it. _Turn it off, just hang up just hang up._

“Would you?”

The tone of Ben’s voice was almost frantic, little gasps horribly intimate and unignorable and Hux felt trapped, hand hovering over the comm, unable to end the call. Shaking with - anger. It couldn’t be anything but anger.

“Would you?” Ben asked again, as if everything hinged on that question.

Hux finished his glass of brandy and, insanely, told the truth. “I - don’t. Know.”

Ben made a noise that sounded like “fuck,” but was so quiet that Hux could only hear the consonants; he could picture Ben’s mouth saying it and he grabbed the comm in both hands, horribly overwhelmed.

Ben moaned over the comm, long and loud and inescapable and Hux ended the call halfway through it, whole body shaking. He threw the comm across the room, watched it bounce off the wall and slide across the floor, and put his head in his hands.

“Shit.”

For a very, very long moment, Hux just sat there. Frozen.

He’d just - what had just happened? He - he’d. He’d _called Ben Solo._ Voluntarily. And then -

No. No, this wasn't his fault. He hadn't expected Solo to actually pick up, it was just a knee-jerk drunk decision. A stupid decision, sure, but one that shouldn't have had any real consequences. Solo was to blame. Because then - then Solo had picked up and he’d said - and Hux had said - and Solo had _moaned_ like he was -

Hux suddenly slammed his fist down on the desk again so hard the half-empty bottle threatened to fall over. That _whore._ That absolute pain in his arse. That entitled, rash, over-bold Resistance slut.

He realized he was hard belatedly, drunkenly, and tried not to think too much about it. He tried to ignore the way his brain seemed to be playing Solo’s little gasps on repeat, glaringly loud. The absolute desperation in Solo’s voice when he’d asked if he would hurt him, if he would _kill_ him.

The all-consuming rage in his chest was all mixed up now - hotter and lower but still there, still violent and furious and confused. Because he still imagined catching him, making him _pay_ , making this right, bringing this whole awful situation back to order, but now imagining catching Solo came with more than just vicious satisfaction - there was something _else_ there, something that made Hux linger a little too long on the thought of putting his hands on him.

Hux brushed his hand over his cock where it was trapped in his pants, heavy and hot and treacherous, and let out a breath that was too unsteady to think about.

He told himself he was just drunk, that this was nothing out of the ordinary; that he wasn’t thinking about Solo or his mouth or his strange, intimate voice and his muddled languages as he unbuttoned his pants but – his hands were shaking. The first touch of his hand on his naked cock felt like an act of treason but it also felt so electric Hux had to bite his lip to stifle the sound he made.

The comm was still on the floor across the room, and Hux felt a shooting spark of panic at the idea that it could be broken, that he might not be able to call Ben ever again –

With one hand still on his dick he took his other hand off the desk to grab at the bottle of brandy. He squeezed his eyes shut and took a long drink, pushing the thought about the comm out of his mind before it destroyed him.

He didn’t think about it. And he didn’t think any more about Solo. He didn’t.

Not about Solo’s lips, not about his voice, not about the long, freckled lines of his body. Not about the taste of his skin, or the way he’d moaned like a whore when Hux had first pushed into him, or how hot his voice had sounded over the comm when he’d said – _fuck, you could kill me._

He didn’t think of him. He wasn’t. This was just – just – well, it had been almost a year since he’d done this and … his… night with Solo had made him … a bit more sensitive than before. Yes, that was all. He just needed to get this out of his system and he’d be fine, he’d be back to normal and he’d certainly never think of that man’s body ever again.

He was still sitting at his desk, one hand gripping the edge and the other wrapped around the length of his painfully hard cock, red and angry and already leaking all over his fist. _When had that happened?_

At the first tentative stroke up from base to tip Hux’s whole body shivered, skin flushed and entirely too sensitive, pre-come making everything hotter and wetter and altogether far better than he’d expected. He tightened his fist just a touch and drew his hand back down, biting his lip so hard he thought he’d break the skin.

Unable to stop himself, he glanced down at his own cock - at the strained, almost purple head of it peeking out of his fist with every pass down and back up, at the absolute mess he was already making over his knuckles. He had an insane desire to lift his hand to his mouth and lick the precome off his own fingers, and he wondered against his better judgment what Solo would do if he could see it.

A horrible, scorching, unwanted image forced its way into his head of Solo doing this to himself, wherever he was hiding like the coward he was, shaking in his chair and whispering to Hux over the comm and fucking up into his own fist. Probably shamelessly touching himself before Hux had even spoken a single word - the depraved, awful whore. Hux couldn’t help but remember that unmistakable moan Solo had made before Hux had ended the call, the _reason_ he’d ended the call. Fuck, he’d _come_ asking Hux if he was going to _kill_ him.  

Hux had no interest in drawing this out; he sped up and tightened his grip on himself a bit more. Tried frantically to put Solo out of his mind. Tried frantically to ignore the fact that touching himself had _never_ felt like this, that it had never felt this good in his life.

He didn’t want to think of the picture he must have made: hunched over in his desk chair, red-faced and panting with shame, cock fucking _drooling_ all over the expensive fabric of his pants where he’d barely bothered to unbutton them. Hair in his eyes, drunk, biting his lip trying not to think of a man who was a spy for the kriffing Resistance _._

He had a freckle on the curve of his left shoulder that Hux’s brain vividly remembered – the exact color and placement, exactly how it had felt to sink his teeth viciously into the skin over it. The gasp he’d made, the way he’d held Hux closer. Pulled him in, gasping louder the more it hurt.

Hux desperately tried to think of something else, anything else. He counted. He solved puzzles. He assembled blasters. He built ships in his mind.

It worked, for a second. He thought of nothing but his own hand and his own cock and his own impending orgasm but every time he started to lose himself, every time his concentration slipped even an inch –

_When you catch me, is it going to hurt?_

Suddenly he was picturing standing over Solo in the brig of the Finalizer and the thought of it made him dizzy. He tried to push it out of his mind, to go back to counting but he realized with a horrible jolt that he was too far gone, that he was curled in on himself in his chair with one hand uncontrollably stroking his cock and the other one creeping past his balls, that he was making a complete mess of himself and ruining his clothes and stumbling toward coming at a frightening speed and intensity, that he couldn’t stop even if he’d wanted to.

He imagined catching him. He imagined catching him and chaining him to the floor of the brig, and he imagined raising his hand and hitting him in the face. Just once.

Hux’s whole body flushed. His toes curled.

He imagined Solo looking up at him, hands cuffed behind his back, knees spread just a touch too far, expression shocked and embarrassed and excited –

He imagined the blush on Ben’s cheeks, half from the force of Hux’s slap and half from the idea of it.

He remembered the tone of his voice over the comm when he’d said, _fuck, you sound angry_.

Hux’s whole body was wound so tight he shook from his curled toes all the way to his red face.

He remembered the moan with a pang of regret: the high, vulnerable sound of it; wishing he’d listened to all of it, wishing desperately he hadn’t ended the call before he could finish hearing Ben come, wondering if he’d said his name – _Hux –_

Hux curled impossibly further in his chair and came silently, hand moving so fast over his cock it was a blur, squeezing his eyes shut, seeing stars behind his eyelids and biting his lip until he tasted blood.

When he came back to himself, the first feeling that registered was disgust. He was filthy. His clothes were filthy and his body was filthy and he needed a shower and - and a hot, uncomfortable shame settled suddenly in his stomach as the full gravity of what he’d just done finally hit him.

Hux grabbed the whole bottle of brandy and took it into the refresher with him, scrubbing his skin until it was splotchy and red and all traces of his horrible treasonous orgasm were burned away. He sank to the floor, finally clean and still naked, and wrapped his arms around himself.

He drank until the bottle was empty and dragged himself naked into bed, resolutely ignoring the overwhelming shame in his chest and the heat lingering on his skin. Instead he focused on the clean, honest, _safe_ rage burning through his whole body and sank into drunk unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought it only fair that i was also inebriated during the writing of this chapter. so, if it rambles. sorry -__-
> 
> i referred to this on google docs as The Emotionally Confused Wank™  
> poor hux he's so ashamed 
> 
> ps; does anyone else find it hilarious that the original starkiller (galen merek) is like the accidental dad of the rebel alliance  
> hux would be so mad to learn that lol  
> please come tell me your thoughts. happy holidays to you all


	9. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few new developments, some of which should not be good and are, and some of which should be good and aren't.

Ben kept the comm.

His drunken… _conversation_ (read – dalliance) with Hux should have been enough to solidify what a truly terrible idea it had been to keep the comm for even an hour, should have been all the evidence his brain needed to destroy it. But. Ben kept the comm.

Even after waking the next morning with a headache and a fuzzy, dry mouth and the worst bedhead of his life, even after all the horrifying memories of what he’d done had come flooding into his sleep-addled brain, he kept it.

_Force_ , he’d _jerked off_ to the Emperor telling him he might kill him. And he came. Loudly. Undoubtedly right into Hux’s ear.

The thought made Ben flush with shame and embarrassment and all sorts of other things, but decidedly not with regret.

So, against the tiny, weak voice of his Better Judgment, he tucked the comm away in his room.

The next few months passed without much incident, as far as the Resistance was concerned. Luke gave as much detail as he could about the new base, and more detail than Ben and Poe in particular wanted to hear about Senka Ren and the Knights.

“She’s gone,” he’d said to the two of them in a private briefing with Leia. “The Rey we trained is dead. There is no conflict in her, no flicker of light. She’s sure. She’s a shadow.”

“You spoke to her?” Poe asked, face almost hopeful.

Luke nodded, but his expression was that serene, unattached, _Jedi_ look that always made Ben’s hair stand on end.

“Yes,” he said. “I spoke to the creature known as Senka Ren. There is nothing we can do for her. She is truly lost to the Dark. The child you knew is gone.” He put a hand on Poe’s shoulder. “You need to accept it, Poe.”

It was a bit easier to accept for Ben, since he’d felt Rey give in to the Dark all those years ago. The feeling had been foreign, visceral, twisting and painful in his stomach. He’d been 10 years old. Rey had been barely 7 and already full of more rage than Ben thought a tiny child capable of. Luke had been overly concerned at how Ben had felt it, how he’d reacted with pain and loss far beyond the casual outside observer. Ben’s empathy unnerved him, it was very clear. Ben left his padawan training after that.

He’d already grieved this. Poe, on the other hand, true to form, had always held out hope.

Seeing it crushed on his face made Ben’s chest ache. He suddenly wanted to wrap Poe up in his arms, but that time was probably passed for them. Instead he gripped Poe’s arm and squeezed it once.

Poe turned his head toward Ben but kept his eyes on the floor, expression dark. Letting Poe down was one of the worst things someone could do in the whole galaxy – it was like a very bright, warm light suddenly dimmed everywhere at once.  Ben felt a surge of rage toward Senka Ren and what she’d done to the people who had once been her family.

After the briefing, Luke pulled Ben aside and spoke to him in the sort of low, cautious voice he usually reserved for teaching swordplay. _Don’t forget you’re holding a deadly weapon, Ben. Be careful._   

“You’re angry.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I’m not a Jedi, Uncle Luke. I can _be_ angry, you know.”

Luke pressed his lips together. “Ben, don’t take this lightly. I know how strongly you feel the Force. Both sides of it.” He put his hand on the side of Ben’s face. “Tread carefully, please. Let this anger go. There is nothing constructive in it.”

Ben took a deep breath and nodded.

Luke gave him a tired smile and left him standing alone in front of his mother’s office, wondering why he felt so off-balance.

Over the next 5 months, the Resistance did a lot of intelligence gathering and not much else. Leia had a lot of secret meetings and seemed to be up at all hours of the night, but Ben didn’t have the time to wonder what she was planning because he was busy doing The Very Stupid Thing.

He talked to Emperor Hux 6 more times.

The first time (well, after the _first_ first time), Hux had called him again. In the early, early morning. Had woken Ben from a dead sleep with just an audio call, again. He’d called Ben _backstabbing whore_ and tried some thinly veiled attempt at telling him off for his _audacity_ before going very quiet, as if waiting for Ben to speak. Ben hadn’t. He wanted Hux to keep talking, to reveal something about…about…about how he felt? What he was doing, why he was calling. But Hux didn’t say anything further. After a long time, Hux just sort of shuffled around like he was getting comfortable and the two listened to each other breathe over the comm until Ben fell back asleep.

The next three times were similar – though Ben called Hux once out of the three – with the two of them just listening to each other in silence. Ben focused on tiny details in the background; the rustle of Hux’s clothes, the sound of his cracking knuckles or those long, soft sighs he’d sometimes make. Something about the silence made all the tiny sounds Hux shared with him blindingly intimate, somehow more of a secret than anything else could have been. Sometimes Ben could hear the clink of a glass and he imagined that Hux only called him in his weakest, drunkest moments, like he could no longer resist the pull of him. It made Ben smile, a little too softly to feel safe.

The fifth time, Hux called him just as the sun was setting and it was a bit harder to justify shutting himself up in his room. The lengths to which Ben went to answer that call set off some distant, long-ignored alarm bells in the back of his mind - he could no longer tell himself he only answered when convenient, or he only called when he was drunk. After three consecutive calls of silence he could no longer tell himself he was trying to gather information. The fact was simple: he wanted to talk to the Emperor. He... _missed_ him, somehow. Missed something about him. Those tiny moments of stolen intimacy over the comm made the bottoms of Ben’s feet tickle like he was standing over a very high cliff.  

When he’d made his excuses and settled into the chair in front of his desk, he answered. He listened to Hux’s breathing - a little faster than usual, a little louder. And a tinkling, warm sound like - drinking from a bottle. Not a glass. Ben was just about to take off his shoes and prop up his feet when Hux, insanely, for the first time in months, _spoke_.

“Why do you keep. Answering.”

Force, he sounded drunk. Drunk and quiet and _lost_. Personal. Ben’s toes curled at the intimacy in his voice. He sat up, heartbeat flying with this new development.

“Why do you keep calling?”

Hux sighed. “Fuck.” He sounded exhausted. “I don’t know.” There was a lot of shifting, like Hux was taking off his jacket, maybe. Or putting one on. Or maybe – Ben’s heart lurched a little – getting into bed.

“It would be. Just fine. If you’d just not _answer_ ,” Hux said. “I. Wouldn’t have to. Think about this sort of thing.”

Ben felt like this conversation was so fragile, something to handle with extreme care or it would break. They’d never come back from this. He lowered his voice. “What sort of thing is that, Starkiller?”

“You,” Hux said softly. “You, the –” Hux hiccupped. “The backstabbing whore.”

Ben waited, feeling like Hux wasn’t done.

He wasn’t.

“How I.” Hux paused, took a long drink. “What you’re _doing_. To me.”

Ben swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “What I’m doing to you?”

“You’re. Using some sort of. _Magic._ On me.” Hux lowered his voice to a whisper like he was telling a grave secret. “I heard you’re a Jedi.”

“I’m not a Jedi,” Ben said automatically, before he registered the rest of what Hux had said.

“You’re.” That tinkle of the bottle again, like Hux was swinging it around. Or maybe drinking from it. “Using that _mind trick_ on me. Making me-” He cut himself off and took another drink.

Ben leaned forward, as if that would help. He waited, completely still. Didn’t even breathe.

“Making me, ah.” Hux sniffed. “You know, uh. Want you.”

All the air whooshed out of Ben’s lungs. _Want you_?

“I know this is your doing, you’ve hypnotized me and this is all your fault, you horrible mystic,” Hux slurred, words stringing together, faster than he’d ever spoken before.

Ben reached up and took the comm in his hands, raised it to his face. He desperately wished he could see Hux right now. He whispered straight into it.

“I’m not. I’m not doing anything.”

“Fuck you, you liar.”

Ben swallowed. “You think I’m doing something to you?”

“I can’t come anymore without hearing you breathe over this comm first, you piece of shit.”

Ben blinked, stunned and hot all over. Hux was silent for a long time after that, and the next time he spoke, his voice was muffled like his hands were over his mouth.

“Fuck.”

Ben grinned, brain-to-mouth filter at it’s usual zero. “You’ve got a filthy mouth, Starkiller.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Ben laughed and Hux made a frustrated noise. Something banged on Hux’s end of the line, like he’d thrown something. His voice was distant when he spoke again, like he’d walked away from the comm.

“You … shit. Shit.” Another bang. “You always do that, you fucker.” Hux walked close to the comm again and settled back down. He took another drink. His accent was so strong, he sounded like a different man. His voice was so slurred and drunk that Ben actually felt a stab of something like concern. He hoped Hux had a place to go to sleep nearby.

Did he seriously just think that?

“Do what?”

“Make fuckin’. Jokes.” The bottle swished, like Hux had it in his hand and was making some grand sort of gesture with it. “You’re so. Kriffin’. Relaxed.” He laughed. “Bastard.”

Ben’s mouth was hanging open and before he could respond, before he could say _we’ve barely ever spoken,_ Hux said, “ _I’m_ a bastard, you know. My Da’s. Bastard.”

What?

Wait. _What?_

Ben opened his mouth to say something else but Hux mumbled, “shit, shit,” under his breath and was ending the call before Ben even really knew what was going on. He was left in silence, staring at the comm sitting on the table in utter disbelief.

He thought about the call every day until the next one, the sixth one.

Before the sixth time, Ben had spent the day flying; making a few quick runs off-world for the first time in what felt like months, and he was _giddy_. He felt like he always did after flying: exhilarated, wired, a little high and completely untouchable.

He came back home just at the end of the day, just in time to see Finn and Poe watching the sun go down over the lake at their favorite spot. He hadn’t thought about Hux once all day.

Partially, that could have been because he was smuggling spice against his mother’s wishes, or it could have been because over the course of one day he’d had 3 separate blasters pointed at him, or it could have been because he’d finally gotten to fly the Falcon again. But whatever the reason, he felt … good. Clear.

Which was why he immediately challenged Poe to a race as soon as he landed.

Poe was leaning against Finn’s chest, settled between his legs watching the lake when he approached. Finn leaned down and whispered something in his ear and he laughed, a low, private sound that made Ben flush across the back of his neck. He cleared his throat.

Finn turned around first and his face lit up. He threw up both arms where they’d been wrapped around Poe and said, “Benny!”

Ben grinned. “You know Poe’s the only one who gets to call me that.”

“You’ve been putting up with me calling you that for longer than I thought you would,” Finn said.

Ben winked. “I guess you’re alright.”

Poe had twisted around in Finn’s arms but otherwise made very little effort to move. He flashed Ben a blinding smile and gestured at the grass next to them.

Ben sat, still jittery and keyed up from flying earlier, and almost immediately turned to Poe and said, “wanna race?”

Poe’s eyes smiled well before his mouth caught up, slow and a little wicked in that way he had. That smile got Poe into a lot of trouble. “We’re not supposed to on base… it’s gonna be a dark night. Real heavy cloud cover.”  

Ben shrugged. “Then we’ll have to make it across the lake and back before the sun sets.” He clapped Finn’s back good-naturedly. “You can judge the winner, bud.”

Finn grinned. It was one of the brightest things Ben had ever seen. “Better get to it, you’re burning daylight.”

Ben looked out over the lake where the sun was setting in a brilliant, beautiful mess of orange and pink. “Or what’s left of it.”

“X-wings?” Poe asked.

Ben rolled his eyes. “Cheater. Using fighters for…sport.” He clucked his tongue. “How could you? We’ve got perfectly good speeders for just this sort of thing….perfectly good, much slower, much less fun speeders.” He sniffed, rolled his shoulders. “Fine. I’ll beat you at your own game, then. And we’ll _finally_ see for good,” he poked Poe in the chest, “who the better pilot is.”

Poe leaned up and stage-whispered to Finn, “it’s me.”

Ben smacked him on the shoulder and stood, offering one hand to Poe and one to Finn to help them up. They jogged to their ships – Ben “borrowed” Jessika’s – and Finn set up on the edge of the lake with a beer and one of the fighter pilot’s reflective jackets as a flag.

He held up his hand, jacket in the air burning orange from the sunlight, huge grin on his face, and when he brought it down Ben and Poe took off across the lake.

The water kicked up behind then in huge fiery arcs of orange-tinted spray, backlit by the sunset. Ben had shed his jacket and shoes and was flying barefoot in nothing but a t-shirt and his threadbare pants, taking advantage of flying on a planet instead of the freezing vacuum of space. He looked over and saw Poe in the cockpit of his fighter almost exactly level with him, rocketing across the surface of the lake and visibly laughing even from this distance.

Ben turned on his fighter’s comm system and yelled over the roar of the engine and the rush of water, “you look a little nervous, there, buddy!”

Poe’s voice was muffled – the X-wings weren’t exactly made for crystal clear audio – but unmistakably jubilant when he said, “oh, you made a _huge_ mistake challenging me to this race, Benny boy.”

Poe did something very complicated with very little warning, which would have been ludicrously unsafe with anyone else, but with Ben was mostly showing off. He somehow ended up on Ben’s other side after flipping his ship _completely around Ben’s_ in a circle, over and then under, squeezing into the miniscule space between Ben and the lake like it was nothing.

Ben huffed. “Show-off.”

Poe laughed. “Come on man, gimme a break, my boyfriend’s in the audience tonight.”

“He’s gonna see you lose, Dameron.”

“Fat chance, Solo.”

They made it across the lake in record time, both flipping their ships on a dime and shooting back toward the tiny reflective blip of Finn’s jacket in the distance. Ben stayed upside down from his turn, hair hanging down – or up – and finally out of his face. His bare feet felt lighter like this, and all the blood rushing to his head made him a little dizzy. He laughed out loud.

“Now who’s a show-off, huh?” Poe’s amused voice crackled over the comm as Ben flew upside down next to him.

Ben made a whooping noise almost exactly like his father, switched to Poe’s other side, and righted his ship. He faltered a little as the blood settled back where it was supposed to be in his head.

“Headrush?” Poe asked, laughing.

“Uh-huh.”

Finn was getting more visible on the shore and Ben and Poe were still almost exactly neck and neck, matching each other’s outrageously dangerous maneuvers one for one. Ben had an idea.

“Hey, Dameron.”

“Yeah?”

Ben grinned. “Bet I can get closer to the water than you.”

“Ha! You think just cause you’re the smuggler I ain’t got no balls?” Poe yelled. “I’ll have you know I’m a fighter in the Resistance, asshole!” He laughed. “Let’s see what you can do, Benny.”

The next bit was, even for Ben, a little dangerous. The surface of the lake got so close he actually felt the drag of it under his ship, and Finn was jumping up and down on the shore, waving his arms around and – as far as Ben could tell – laughing. Then he started running backwards, away from the edge of the lake, still laughing. Ben chanced a look behind him and saw that they had made a _wave_ in their wake flying so close to the water. A pretty huge one, nearly as tall as a man. He could actually hear the sound of it behind them.

Ben started to laugh, absolutely giddy. Through the comm, Poe laughed too.

They crossed over Finn at almost exactly the same time, Ben laughing so hard his vision blurred, sweat sticking his hair to the back of his neck. The wave crashed over the spot where Finn had been standing before and Finn threw up his hands, pointing to it.

Poe was still laughing when they got out of their ships, sweaty and happy and pointing at Finn, who was – though he’d avoided the wave – still soaked in lake water.

Ben cackled at the sight of him, doubling over as he got out of Jessika’s ship, bare feet landing with a smack on the concrete when he jumped out.

He walked over and clapped Poe on the back, still grinning so big it almost hurt his face. Finn wrapped his dripping arms around Poe, soaking the front of his shirt with water.

Poe made a face and half-heartedly tried to push him away, eyes laughing. Finn kissed him.

“I got you a present,” he said, wringing out his shirt all over Poe’s shoes.

“Boys.”  

Ben, Poe, and Finn all whirled around at the sound of Leia’s voice – Poe and Finn snapped to attention and saluted, but it was a bit hard to stand at attention in bare feet and a sweaty t-shirt. Ben scratched the back of his neck and looked sheepish.

“General,” he said. Leia grinned.

“Don’t give me that guilty look,” she said, winking. Her eyes were shining – Ben hadn’t seen her like this in months, maybe years. She looked _hopeful_. Determined. “If you’re all done being reckless _children_ ,” she gave Ben a pointed look, “I’ve got something important to talk to you about. Come with me.”

The three raised their eyebrows at each other but followed, until Leia said over her shoulder, “and put some shoes on Ben, for the love of the Force. You look like you’re homeless.”

Poe snickered next to him and Ben scowled, ducking into his room to get some shoes.

His comm rang for the sixth time as soon as he stepped into the room – the one he wasn’t supposed to have, hidden under his sock drawer. His whole body tensed, froze, staring at the drawer where Hux was calling him, shoes in his hand and Leia waiting for him in her office.

He couldn’t. They’d know. He left it, feeling an unpleasant twisting in his stomach. Already planning, traitorously, on calling him back.

When he settled into a seat in Leia’s office, Poe, Finn, and a few other _very_ high-ranking Resistance intelligence officers were gathered around Leia’s desk. She was holding a datapad and looking – though a bit serious – younger and clearer than Ben had seen her in recent memory. He was the only person there who wasn’t an officer.

What on earth was he doing there?

Leia took a deep breath and came right out with it:

“We have a plan.”

She was met with total, riveted silence. She had the room’s undivided attention.

“After 6 months of planning – and I apologize for those of you who were kept in the dark during that time,” she glanced pointedly at Ben and Poe. “It was vital that we keep this whole thing under wraps.”

“I’m not going to mince words here. We’re going to assassinate the Emperor.”

A murmur went through the group, Poe’s eyebrows shot up and Finn’s mouth hung open, looking at Leia like she was either insane or the most inspiring person he’d ever set eyes on.

Ben’s entire world fuzzed to almost nothing; he could hardly hear the General through the sudden deafening ringing in his ears.

She was going through the plan, the carefully laid plan to _assassinate Hux_ – the Emperor, the Starkiller, the scourge of the Resistance and most of the galaxy, Ben tried to remind himself. But his brain just kept saying _Hux_ on repeat, over and over and over again. He barely heard a word of what Leia said.

Something about a speaking engagement, something about a sniper. Something about a failsafe, a bomb – _a controlled blast_ , she said, one that wouldn’t hurt any innocent civilians. Just Hux.

Just Hux.

“-wouldn’t have been able to do this without the combined intelligence of Commander Skywalker and Captain Solo,” she said with a sly smile in Ben’s direction. _Captain_. That was new. His dad had been Captain Solo once, back in the day. He tried to smile, but something seemed to be wrong with his face.

“I’d like Commander Dameron running point on this. Poe, you answer to me. You’re taking Rogue Squadron and you’ll run interference to get Blue on site. Ben, I need you to stick with Blue; they’re going to be placing the explosives and they’re going to be the closest team to Starkiller, physically. If the Emperor makes a single move that looks off, I _need_ you there to see it. You’re the only one who’s gotten –” She paused, made a face, “ _close_ enough to him to know if he suspects something. I’m trusting your call on this.”

Ben nodded, ears still ringing. Leia looked up at the room.

“I’m depending on you. This is –” she looked down, set her lips in a thin line and sighed. “This is a lot. I realize that. This is a bold move, and it’s scary. But it’s the right one. And it’s going to work, because I have all of you. I’ve given everyone a detailed plan and mission report. As it is _encrypted_ , highly sensitive information,” she said pointedly, “please keep it safely amongst yourselves. You’re dismissed for now. I’m proud of you all.”

For a long time, Ben sat in the chair, staring off into space. This was good, he told himself. This could turn the tide of everything. The Resistance could have a real chance to end the First Order’s reign of terror across the galaxy; they could stop billions from dying, why did he feel like this? The ringing in his ears wouldn’t stop, his fingers and toes and ears were numb and tingling.

Someone was talking to him.

Leia.

“I’m so proud of you, Ben,” she was saying, putting a hand on his shoulder and looking at him with earnest, trusting, hopeful eyes. “We couldn’t have done this without you. We’ve got to talk about your methods, but. You did well. You did really well.”

Ben nodded. Leia touched the side of his face, sitting in the chair next to him. Her hands were warm, safe. It had been a long time since she’d held him and he was suddenly, acutely aware of exactly how long. He only then noticed that the room was empty except for the two of them.

“Are you alright?”

Ben nodded again.

“It’s a lot to process. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. This had to be a fully formed plan before it was announced, you understand?”

“Yeah,” Ben cleared his throat. “Yeah, General.”

Leia pulled Ben forward and held his head in both of her arms, running a hand through his hair. Ben felt _tears_ pricking behind his eyes, for no reason at all. His chest was so tight he was afraid something in it would snap.

“I love you, Ben.”

Ben brought up a hand and crushed Leia closer for one moment before letting go. “I love you too, Mom.”

“We can do this. You can do this.”

“Yeah.”

Ben’s head was spinning. He felt like he was in free fall, like he wasn’t sure which way was up. His ears still rung so loud he could barely hear himself speak. Over and over in his head he heard _assassinate the Emperor, assassinate the Emperor, assassinate the Emperor._

“Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all, i am so sorry this took me forever. the holidays kicked my ass. anyway, i love you and the next chapter will be faster and things are finally moving again so. i'm in the middle of writing it if you've got ideas pLEASE come help i'm a lost asshole with no sense of my own plotlines here's my tumblr again in case you forgot it the first 3 times i posted it https://francisthegreat.tumblr.com/


	10. ...But I'm Wearing a Cape!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of really confusing things happen in very quick succession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. somehow i wrote this in the last like 2 days. shame on me. anyway enjoy, next chapter will probably take a bit longer - this story keeps /changing/ on me, so the chapter numbers could be a lie, among other things.

Hux sat in a meeting with his head of security, his two highest ranking Generals, the Master of the Knights of Ren and a droid he _truly_ did not care for, and contemplated Ben Solo.

It had been almost six months since the first … incident. And, regrettably, he had spoken to Solo five more times – sort of. Sober, he told himself he was gathering intelligence. Getting under Solo’s skin. Waiting for him to make a mistake, biding his time until Solo revealed his location. But even sober, he couldn’t find an excuse for their silent, unnervingly intimate audio calls. Even sober, the back of his mind did nothing but replay the little noises Solo made when he settled, the weight of the silence between them, this one deep, satisfied groan he’d make when he sat down.

And that last call – Hux felt his cheeks warm when he remembered what he’d said to him, what he’d _admitted_ to him. _I can’t come without listening to you breathe_ and _I’m a bastard, you know_. Solo had seemed surprised, truly, actually surprised by Hux’s candor, and a small part of him regretted hanging up so quickly.

A bigger part of him fixated on why he hadn’t picked up this last time.

“-Your Excellency?”

“Hm?” Hux looked up at Phasma, completely distracted.

“Do you find this plan agreeable, Sir?”

“What, uh. What plan is that?”

“The operating procedure for your speech on Arkanis next month, Sir,” Phasma said, giving him the beginning of a _look_. She was using _sir_ too much; she only did that when she was being cross with him in public. “Are you alright? Sir?”

“Of course,” Hux snapped, cheeks warm again. Arkanis. His _homecoming_ speech. Something about their loyalty, something about his place of birth, blah blah blah. Of course, absolutely _nothing_ about his origins as his father’s dirty bastard. Hux hated this faux-diplomatic bantha shit. “Of course I’m alright.”

He suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and almost immediately Senka Ren’s deep, splintered voice said, “Your mind is…strange today. Emperor.”

“Yes, well, I don’t need to be psychoanalyzed by you, Ren, thank you.”

She floated forward to stand at his left side, bringing a chill with her that raised the hairs on his arm. Her voice was soft, deceptively gentle.

“You are distracted.”

Hux felt her touch his mind and he fought the urge to shiver. He imagined a brick wall, imagined all the seams of it. Ren bristled next to him. There was something _freezing_ about being in close proximity to her – like there was a cloud of concentrated fear and rage that just sort of…enveloped her. He didn’t like being touched by it.

“This is not a conversation for this table,” Hux hissed through his teeth. Ren nodded and took a step back, but her horrible presence in the back of his mind remained, looking. Searching. Curious.

“So anyway,” Phasma said, addressing the room, “I’ve compiled a report for everyone regarding the security measures for the trip. Please do read them in their _entirety_ ,” she looked very pointedly at Ren and Ren tilted her head. The set of her shoulders was clearly pleased and it unnerved Hux that he seemed to know that just from looking at her.

“But you sum it up so nicely, General,” Ren said, voice … off. Softer than usual, almost tender. Phasma’s _cheeks_ _flushed_.

Oh.

Sith hells.  

He’d have to speak to Phasma about this.

“That’s all, Your Excellency,” Phasma said after clearing her throat. “Nothing further to report.”

“Good,” Hux said, a little too quickly. Whatever was in the security report, he’d read it tonight. He always did enjoy reading reports anyway. “You’re all dismissed.”

The room emptied with little more than a few murmurs, but when Hux got up to head back to his office, Ren followed him.

“Emperor.”

Hux didn’t turn around. “Ren.”

“You’re conflicted.”

“I assure you there is nothing I could possibly be conflicted about.”

“It’s not clear to me,” she said, frustrated. “But there _is_ conflict in you. Like…” she trailed off, somehow keeping pace with him easily despite his height on her. It looked like she barely moved. How did she _do_ that?

“Like you turned your back on a cigarette, Emperor, and turned back to find a forest fire.”

Hux thought of Ben’s freckled collarbone and his stomach turned. “I’ve no time for your metaphors, Ren.”

“Something is … clouding your mind. Something you did not foresee or intend. Something you cannot control. If you would let me in –”

“ _Absolutely not_.”

“Emperor, I can’t protect you if I don’t know you.”

Hux finally turned to her, stopping in his tracks. He stuck out a finger and poked her in the shoulder. “As you very well know, Ren, I do not need protecting. Certainly not on this base and _certainly_ ,” he spat these last words with all the fear she instilled in him, “not in my own mind.”

Ren’s presence suddenly grew stiflingly, overwhelmingly hot. Hux fought every instinct in his body telling him to _step back_ and glared at her. Her hand was on her saber hilt. Hux had the terrible feeling of standing in front of an active volcano.

“Careful, Your _Excellency_ ,” Ren said, low and furious and mind-numbingly frightening. “I turned on my last master; I can turn on you. Some respect,” she took a step closer, “would be appreciated.”

“May I remind you, _Ren_ ,” Hux said, suddenly angry, “that you were _not_ the one who put your saber through Snoke’s shriveled black heart.”

Ren snarled through her mask. “I softened him up for you.”

“Regardless,” Hux said, turning and resuming his walk with Ren at his shoulder, “you and I both know you have no master.”

Ren said nothing, but Hux again felt with inexplicable certainty that she was pleased. He spoke again without looking at her.

“My mind is mine, Ren.”

“Very well,” she said, slowing when she saw Phasma across the control room. “And Emperor?”

Hux turned.

“I do have a master.” Ren turned away from him, body languid and predatory, oozing darkness like a black hole. When she spoke again it was low, warm, and right into his mind.

“It’s myself.”

 

That night, Solo called him back. It was the first time Hux had ever been sober for one of their conversations, and there was an inexplicable seed of anxiety in his stomach as he watched the comm ring.

He answered.

“Yes.”

“Hello, Starkiller.” There was something in Solo’s voice that gave Hux pause, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Something distant, almost _sad_.

“Why are you calling me?”

There was no answer for longer than Hux was comfortable with. A shifting, and then a long, exhausted sigh as Solo said, “You called me.”

Hux huffed. He didn’t know what else to say, so he said nothing.

They sat in silence for long moments, settled into each other in a way Hux was becoming familiar with. Solo was so quiet on the other end of the line that Hux almost thought he’d gone. He leaned forward in his desk chair, tilted his head to listen.

There was almost nothing. No sigh, no fidgeting, no cracking of knuckles. He usually couldn’t seem to stop moving; constantly shuffling around, but now he was – silent. Completely still. Something itched inside Hux’s chest, the urge to ask Solo a question. He tried to ignore it but it pushed harder, a tight pressure under his ribcage. He grimaced and leaned forward onto his elbows.

“Something is bothering you.”

“What?”

Hux rolled his eyes. “It’s obvious.”

“How…how is it. Obvious.”

Hux didn’t know. Something in the air between the sounds he made. His stillness, his silence. He shrugged, though Solo couldn’t see it.

“Just is.”

Solo sighed again, heavy as a stone. It felt like a confession of some sort. Like he was unloading something. “Yeah.”

He didn’t care. He didn’t care what was bothering him. Unless, of course, it had something to do with the Resistance…

“What, uh. What’s. What’s bothering you.” Hux didn’t phrase it as a question, because phrasing it as a question could have been misconstrued as an expression of _concern_. Concern was something he _definitely_ did not have for the backstabbing whore, no matter what the itching in his chest said.

For a long time Solo was quiet again, perfectly silent and still. Like he was just sitting there with his hands on the table, staring at the comm.

Solo breathed in sharply before he spoke, as if a thought was forcing its way out of him without warning. “Do you ever think about them?”

“About what?”

“About the people you’ve killed.” Solo paused, took a drink. “About the _billions._ Of people you’ve killed. Starkiller.”

Hux answered honestly.

“No.”

Solo cursed under his breath in an ugly language that Hux didn’t speak. Then he laughed, low and hollow. “No. No, of course you don’t.”

Hux said nothing. He wasn’t sure where Solo was going with this.

“You’re a fucking _monster_ , you know that, Hux?”

_Hux_. Hux curled his toes.

“Yes.”

Solo made a frustrated noise, sighed again. Groaned like something was paining him. “Why. Why am I - why do you - ah, fuck.”

Hux let it drop, sitting back and listening to what he was now fairly sure was Solo drinking himself into the ground in relative silence. After about 15 minutes, his back started to hurt and he got up and moved to his bed. For comfort’s sake, of course. Solo breathed in sharply.

“Are you - did you just get into your bed?”

Hux raised an eyebrow. He could lie. It would be easy, he was good at it. He didn’t want to, though. For reasons he couldn’t explain. He thought of Ren, of her thoughts about cigarettes and forest fires. Of how often Solo wormed his way into the back of his mind, into his dreams at night.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Solo switched subjects, voice muddying a little. “I don’t drink like this.”

Hux said nothing.

“I mean,” Solo continued, “I drink to _celebrate_ , you know. Like a normal person. I don’t. I don’t drink to -”

“Forget,” Hux supplied.

“Yeah,” Solo whispered.

Hux hummed.

“I’ve killed people, too, you know,” Solo said, voice dark and even. “I, uh. I remember all of them.”

“Ah, yes, and I’m sure that means a great deal to their corpses,” Hux responded.

Solo was silent.

“The dead are dead, Solo. That’s all they are,” Hux said. “Whether you feel guilt or regret over killing them. Whether you enjoyed it. The dead are still dead.”

Over the line, Hux heard Solo take a long, long drink.

“I guess you think that makes you the same as me, huh? Both of us, takin’ lives.”

“Have you ever blown up a star system?”

“No.”

The lights in Hux’s room were on a timer (he was, after all, _very_ good at keeping a schedule) and they all went out at once. Hux didn’t want to get up to get them, so he settled into the dark, listening to Ben Solo sulk.

“Perhaps we don’t stand on quite equal footing, then.”

“Cosmically, you mean.”

“Cosmically.”

Solo laughed - a sad, dry sound. It made Hux’s chest hurt.

“I, uh,” Solo said, haltingly. “I believe in. Balance. In the Force.”

Hux huffed. “And you think your _feelings_ after you take a life will provide that balance, do you? You think yourself so important?”

“Well, I.” Solo sighed. “No. No, I don’t.”

Hux, alone in his bed in the dark, made a “well there you go” gesture.

“But that’s,” Solo said, taking another drink, “that’s not. It’s for _me_. It’s. I’m not. I’m not you. I know it’s. It doesn’t make them less _dead_. I remember them because. Because they deserve to be remembered. Not for. The - you know, the cosmic score sheet.”

“The cosmic score sheet.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in silence again for a long time while Hux contemplated how to convince himself he was doing this to gather intelligence. He came up with only one thing: laying in his bed and repeating “I am doing this to gather intelligence” at the ceiling until he believed it.

“Hey, you still gonna find me?”

Solo’s voice was strikingly more drunk than it had been the last time he’d spoken. He always sounded so remarkably different when he was drunk - low and vulnerable, cracked open and dark like the inside of a fruit. It was … very charming. Hux grinned, then caught himself and put on a scowl for propriety’s sake.

“Yes, Solo. I’m still going to find you.”  

“You’ve -”  he hiccuped, “stopped calling me backstabbing whore.”

Hux’s chest flushed. “I-”

“I like it when you say my name.”

Hux said nothing. Ben continued.

“I wanted to hear you say it, on Tarma. I wanted it to be my real name.”

_On Tarma_. Hux felt a hot flare of anger and - something else - before he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. Ben would pay for this; he _needed_ to pay for this. But he was still talking.

“I know you wanted to hear me say yours. I felt it. You like it when I say your name, Hux.”

“You can’t feel that from where you are.”

“No, but I can tell.”

“Where are you?”

Ben laughed. “Floating through unoccupied space. At the zoo, taming my new pet Rancor. On Starkiller Base, hiding in a vent in the ceiling and watching you blush when I say your name. Take your pick.”

“You’re wasting my time,” Hux said, making a movement toward the comm as if he was about to turn it off and then hovering his hand over it, waiting for Ben to stop him.

The comm beeped, a light blinking at Hux through the utter darkness of his room. Holo request. Hux froze.

“Come on,” Ben whispered through the comm. “Come on, I wanna see you. I-” he cut himself off and there it was again, that tone of voice that made Hux sure he was hiding something.

“Hux,” Ben said, and Hux felt it all the way from the crown of his head to his fingertips. He imagined seeing what sort of state Ben was in now, hunched over the bottle he was drinking from, cheeks and chest flushed and freckled. This was too dangerous. He couldn’t.

He did.

The holo blinked on, filling Hux’s room with pale blue light and a lot of Ben Solo. Hux forgot that the holo feature on this comm was - ridiculously huge, set up in the middle of his room, so that he was staring at a life-sized version of Ben sitting on his floor, cross-legged and holding a bottle of what was probably whisky while he stared slightly off to the right. Waiting.

“I’m waiting for you to come on,” Ben said, voice slurred and dark. _Fuck_ , but watching him speak was so much worse. His _mouth_.

Hux cleared his throat.

“You’re what?”

Ben gestured at something Hux couldn’t see and said, “my comm. It’s – it’s a piece of junk. Holo always takes a minute. I can’t see you.”

Something about watching Ben sit drunk and open on his floor while Ben couldn’t see him made Hux flush, too warm in his cheeks and his chest and the pit of his stomach.

Ben suddenly groaned, eyebrows pulling together, and bit his lip. He shook his head. “There you are,” he whispered, voice so soft and quiet Hux had to lean forward a little to hear.

“Fuck,” Ben said, still speaking softer than Hux felt was appropriate, “are you – are those – fuck. You’re. Wearing dog tags.”

Hux shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. He felt horribly exposed in his t-shirt.

“I was a General in the military, Solo.”

“Yeah, I know, I just. I’ve. I’ve never seen them, I didn’t. Consider.” Ben bit his lip again, worrying at it with his slightly crooked teeth. When he pulled it away it was swollen and puffy, probably flushed deep red and just a little wet and –

_Get a hold of yourself, Hux_.

“I don’t wear them over my clothes, you idiot. You didn’t see them on Tarma because I was, you know. Trying to hide my identity.”

Ben laughed, and the sound was so much _worse_ attached to that _face,_ open and brilliant and crooked, all its parts shoved together gracelessly, heartbreakingly gorgeous. Hux shook his head and licked his lips. Ben’s eyes followed his tongue with rapt attention, laugh dying in his throat.

Ben’s cheeks were flushed even over the holo, and Hux found himself desperately, painfully wishing he could see the color on them, could really see it, right there in front of him in his bedroom.

He remembered the way Ben blushed so vividly; how it felt under his hands, just a few degrees hotter than the rest of him. How it looked against all that beautiful pale skin and all those dark freckles, pink and lovely across his cheeks and his big ears and down his throat. How it tasted.

“What are you thinking about?” Ben asked, big hands fidgeting with the liquor bottle. He splayed his legs out on the ground and propped himself back on one arm.

“Nothing,” Hux lied.

“Liar. You had a look like you were thinking about sex.” Ben’s eyes sparkled and he smiled, slow and predatory. “Were you thinking about me?”

“Of course I wasn’t.”

“You are now.”

Hux didn’t say anything. Ben flopped back onto both elbows and put the bottle down on the floor next to him. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, eyelashes long and dark against his skin, and sighed. Hux felt a visceral, almost violent desire to be near him, to feel his body heat.

“You’re in bed, I can see your sheets around your waist,” Ben said, eyes still closed.

“You can’t see anything.”

Ben grinned and cracked one eye open. “You’re still in bed.” He raised an arm and pointed. Shit, his hands really were spectacular. Long, elegant fingers, callused palms. Hux still remembered how they felt, how the calluses caught on the delicate skin on the insides of his thighs.

“And you?” Hux asked, inexplicably breathless. “Where are you?”

“I’m,” Ben gestured uselessly to the inside of Hux’s bedroom. “I’m right here.” He flopped back onto the floor, lay down on his back and stared up at – something.

Hux sat up and threw his legs over the edge of the bed, scooting closer to where the holo of Ben was laying on the floor. He put his elbows on his knees and just sort of … sat there. Watching Ben breathe. Listening to him. Telling himself he was gathering intelligence. Marveling at the broadness of his shoulders, the lines of his throat and collarbones in his stretched-out t-shirt.

Ben spoke from his spot on the floor, but kept his eyes closed.

“I - I wanna. I wanna tell you something.”

Hux leaned forward, heart sprinting in his chest. Ben’s tone of voice was _off_ again, low like a confession.

“What do you want to tell me, Solo?”

“I. Can't.”

Hux closed his eyes and breathed very deeply. “Yes, you can.”

Ben was silent for a moment and when he next spoke, the tone of voice was gone. He’d missed the window. Hux cursed under his breath.

“I’m spinning. Am I spinning?”

Hux huffed. “You’re drunk.”

“Yep. Are you?”

“No.”

Ben’s eyes cracked open again, turned liquid and hot when he saw Hux had moved. Ben dragged his eyes from Hux’s toes all the way up to the way his hair was stuck up in the back. Hux remembered suddenly that he had no pants on, that he was sitting there in his underwear. He tried his best not to fidget.

Ben didn’t move from his spot on the floor, but one hand drifted to grip the neck of the bottle next to him and the other hand started rubbing his chest. He didn’t take his eyes off Hux.

“Starkiller?” he whispered. Hux had never seen Ben’s mouth say the name.

“Yes?”

Ben’s hand drifted to his stomach, skirted the bottom edge of his shirt. Hux’s mouth went dry.

“I can see you,” Ben said.

“Yes.”

Ben’s fingers snuck under the hem of his shirt just a little, grazed the skin of his stomach where it met his waistband. He sat up a little and took another drink, then laid back down.

“I never get to see you.”

Ben’s shirt had ridden up a little bit, and Hux could see where his fingers touched the skin of his stomach. Where they crept down just a little, slipped under the waist of his pants just a fraction of an inch, making Ben’s breath hitch just the tiniest bit.

Hux was so dizzy. It was far too hot in his room. One of his hands was in a tight fist next to him, and the other was pulling distractedly at his hair, making it stand up all over his head.

“What have you done?” Ben whispered. “What have you done to me?”

Hux laughed, lightheaded and hot. He felt giddy, overwhelmed, _drunk_ with the way Ben’s fingers touched the skin of his own stomach.

“Fuck,” Ben said. “Fuck, you’re.” He unbuttoned his pants but didn’t push them down, just snuck his fingers a little further down. Hux couldn’t tear his eyes away from the way Ben’s long, beautiful fingers scratched through the line of dark hair at the bottom of his stomach.

“You’re a monster, Hux.” Ben repeated what he’d said earlier, only this time his hand was halfway to his cock and his eyes were closed and his voice was _wrecked_ , low and rumbling and vulnerable.

Hux was so focused on Ben’s hand making its way down his stomach that it took him several minutes to even realize he was hard.

“Yes,” Hux agreed, his own fingers inching toward his cock of their own accord, “Yes, I am.”

“You’re, ah,” Ben hissed, hand obscenely shoved down the front of his pants, somehow worse than if he’d just taken them off, “you’re a very bad man.” When he said “bad man” his breath hitched in the middle, and Hux’s throat was so dry it clicked when he swallowed.

“Yes.”

Ben finally pulled his pants down enough to get his cock out, and _fuck_ Hux had forgotten how fucking _big_ it was, even with Ben’s huge hand wrapped around it. Hux mirrored him, sighed when he finally got a hand around himself.

For a long moment Hux just looked, just looked at Ben sprawled on the floor of his bedroom, the long lines of his body outlined in blue light, fist wrapped loosely around his big cock like he had all the time in the world, hair over his eyes and spread out on the floor under him.

_Shit_ , what he wouldn’t give to have Ben there, right there with him. To finally have the bastard where he could touch him, where he could feel the heat he was undoubtedly giving off like a furnace, where he could make him pay.

The friction of his hand was almost painful, but somehow it seemed to be pushing Hux further into lunacy instead of back. A line of fire licked up his spine when he watched Ben twist his wrist just like – _that_.

“Open your eyes,” Hux said sharply. Ben opened his eyes and bit his lip, fist tightening on his dick. Hux didn’t realize how hot his skin was, how out of control he felt, until he watched Ben’s eyes looking at him. Burning. Drowning.

“Fuck, I hate your eyes,” Hux said, squeezing his own shut for a second. “They’re – they’re. Ah, _shit_.”

Ben’s other hand bunched his shirt up and was tracing over his stomach again, slow but halting like he was having trouble concentrating. His eyes were fixed on Hux’s chest, on his dog tags.

“Look at my fucking face, you whore,” Hux breathed, suddenly furious at the whole situation. Ben’s eyes snapped up to his face, the look in them caught somewhere between confused and scorching, a devastating forest fire in his expression.

Hux didn’t realize he was just as lost until it was nearly too late.

“This – this.” Ben gasped, sharp like a gunshot, both hands now frantically working over his cock with absolutely no finesse or control. “This isn’t – this isn’t gonna take. Long.”  

Hux nodded his head, facing the same shocking realization.

“You’re –” Ben bit his lip and said something in a _gorgeous_ , rolling, lilting language, lips wrapping around the words in a way that made Hux’s toes curl.  

Ben closed his eyes and started to shake. Hux needed – he needed –

“Please, please, _Ben_ , please look at me.”

Ben’s eyes flew open at the same time as his mouth and he came silently, whole body pulled into one long, shuddering line and the sight of it was so devastating that it pushed Hux right over the edge with him.  

Neither of them moved for a second, Ben panting on Hux’s floor while Hux tried to clear the stars from his eyes. Both of them just sitting in their own come, both of them flushed and confused.

Hux regained his wits first, a hot rush of anger shooting through the inside of his chest.

“Shit.”

Ben huffed a laugh from his place on the floor, flushed all the way to where his shirt was pushed up to his chest, sprawled out with both arms straight out on either side, spent dick still intimidatingly huge hanging out of his pants. _Damn it_.

“Guess this is the part where we scramble to hang up.”

“Yes.”

Ben looked him in the eye, expression liquid and warm and relaxed, and just a little bit sad.

“Goodnight, Hux.”

“Fuck you, whore,” Hux said, breathless. Ben just laughed at him.

He hung up and threw the comm across the room, took a very short but very hot shower, and he really, truly, did everything in his power not to think about it any more.  

 

Somehow, Hux managed to make it to Arkanis without much incident, and with only minimal uncomfortably sexual dreams about Ben Solo. He wondered idly if this was what going mad felt like.

When he stepped off the shuttle and onto the planet, he felt a wave of nauseating nostalgia so strong it threatened to knock him over. It was raining, of course, and freezing, of course, but there was something else, something undefinable about this place that got under his skin, reminded him of being young and unsure and small. Maybe it was the smell. Arkanis had a decidedly _green_ smell, cold rain and grass and wet wood, and no other planet he’d ever set foot on in his life smelled quite like it.

He looked over the security detail in front of him - a few Knights of Ren and a select few Troopers, before turning back to the shuttle. Ren and Phasma stepped out together, Ren somehow looking huge and frightening from her place near Phasma’s elbow. As soon as Ren’s foot hit the ground, she turned her mask in Hux’s direction. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air.

“He’s here.”

Hux raised his eyebrows, but Ren said nothing else. Hux huffed.

“Yes please, Ren, as head of my personal security detail, _now_ is a excellent time to be cryptic and vague.”

Ren took a step toward Hux and lowered her voice. “Something is going to happen. Ben Solo is here.”

Hux swallowed, felt a flush of panic (and certainly _not_ excitement) shoot down his spine. Ren took another step toward Hux, looking around, and motioned to Phasma, who approached Hux’s other side with her hand on her blaster.

“You think they’re going to try something? Here? Surrounded by so many of our Troopers?”

Ren nodded. Hux clenched his fist.

“Let them try. I have a very important lie to deliver to this wretched planet.”

He tried to storm off in an overdramatic swirl - and really, what was the _kriffing_ point of wearing this ridiculous ceremonial cape if he couldn’t storm off in an overdramatic swirl - but Ren grabbed his arm. Her touch was freezing cold; he felt it all the way to the bone.

“Do not underestimate him, Emperor.”

Hux shook her off, straightening his coat to hide the full-body shudder that shot through him at her crushing grip, the frigid cold of her proximity.

“I’m not.”

Ren leaned in, tilted her head. Hux felt astonishingly exposed.

“You -” Ren held her hand out in front of his face and he smacked it away. It didn’t seem to make any difference. She spoke in a soft, enraged voice. “ _You want to see him_.”

Hux narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you _dare_ touch my mind again, Ren.”

“You felt _anticipation_ when I told you he was here.”  

Hux whirled around and started toward the Academy Convention Center, ignoring her completely. Security flanked him on all sides, with Phasma at one shoulder and Ren at the other. Ren didn’t drop the issue.

“Emperor -”

“Ren, if you are going to make another utterly useless comment about Solo, save it. I daresay there’s a likely kidnapping attempt in the works as we speak - I suggest you focus.”

Ren dropped the issue.

When they arrived at the Academy Convention Center, the head of the Academy was there to greet them. Hux squinted at his long, sharp face and obnoxious expression before determining that he was almost definitely a member of the Tarkin family. He looked a little nervous, but mostly very pleased with himself.

“Your _Excellency_ ,” he said with a bow that made Hux want to roll his eyes, “it is an honor and a true pleasure to have you back at the Academy. I’m Commandant Tarkin. I’m in charge of the cadets here.”

“What happened to Commandant Brant?” Hux asked sharply, ignoring the rest.

Tarkin shifted. “Commandant Brant had a, ah, conflict of interest, Your Excellency.” He cleared his throat and didn’t elaborate. “We were forced to replace him. He will be missed, of course,” Tarkin added in a lofty voice, like an afterthought.

Hux hummed and started toward the building, taking his overly large and intimidating security convoy with him. Tarkin seemed determined to stick his nose as far up Hux’s ass as humanly possible.

“Of course, Sir, no one could ever live up to your father and the _ironclad_ legacy he left here as Cadet Commandant of the Academy -”

“That’s quite enough, Tarkin, thank you.”

“It’s, ah, _Commandant_ Tarkin, if you please, Your Excellency.”

Hux paused. He turned. He regarded Tarkin with all the frozen, pent-up rage he’d been saving for his father since his death. And he waited. One. Two -

“Ah, um, of course, Your Excellency outranks me in every conceivable way and may refer to me however he wishes,” Tarkin finished with a nervous little chuckle. Hux nodded curtly.

“Tell me about your security. We believe there may be some sort of … disturbance. Today.”

Tarkin raised his eyebrows. “Sir, this is the _Imperial Academy_. Our security is airtight.”

“Then you won’t mind giving General Phasma here complete access and authority over this facility until this engagement is … finished.”

“Of - of course not, Emperor Hux.”

Phasma looked sharply at Hux. “Sir, considering recent developments I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be more than a foot from your side at the moment.”

Hux stepped closer and lowered his voice so Phasma was the only one who could hear him. “Phas, it’ll be fine. I don’t trust anyone else to keep that idiot out of my hair. And besides, I’ve got Ren. And a blaster that I’m quite good with, if you’ll remember.”

Phasma gave him a long look and then said, “fine,” under her breath, a little too surly for Hux’s liking. She turned to Ren and looked at her. Hux had the feeling he was witnessing some sort of … moment.

“Of course, General,” Ren said suddenly, and the corner of Phasma’s mouth turned up before she nodded and walked off to Security Control with Tarkin.

A very frazzled looking cadet showed Hux and his overly large and intimidating security convoy to the green room, offered him drinks about 8 times, and tripped over her own shoes at least twice. She wouldn’t look Ren in the eye and seemed barely capable of looking at Hux long enough to tell him the schedule.

“You’re on in 5 minutes, Your Excellency,” the cadet said, wiping her forehead and whispering into a headset - something about _of course we need napkins he’s the Emperor, you idiots_ \- before wandering out of the room.

Hux turned to Ren. The rest of the security detail was outside. Ren stood freakishly still in the center of the room and didn’t seem to acknowledge that Hux was looking at her at all. He wondered if her eyes were closed. He wondered if she _had_ eyes.

“What’s going on out there, Ren?”

She didn’t move, but her voice was soft and detached, distracted, when she said, “there is a bomb in this room.”

Hux tried not to let his shock show on his face but had a rather poor time of it.

“Ex _cuse_ me?”

“Hush, Emperor. I’m looking for it.” She stayed disconcertingly still for another minute, then shot out her hand like she was grabbing something. The wall of the green room splintered and something very flat and small went flying into Ren’s hand.

“Got it.”

Hux walked over next to Ren and studied the bomb. It was strange, not like any explosive device he’d seen before, and the circuitry was almost beautiful in its intricacy. Ren’s hand tightened on it like she was about to crush it in her fist.

“Wait!”

Ren waited. Hux took the bomb gingerly out of her hand. It was counting down; there were only about 2 minutes left. “If you crush it, you’ll set it off. Don’t you sense that?”

Ren shrugged.

_Guess not_.

“Fuck, I’ve got to do everything my fucking self,” Hux muttered under his breath, taking off his coat and rolling up his sleeves. He opened the panel and studied the wiring for a moment, then waved Ren over.

“How fine is your control over the Force?”

“Fine.”

“Can you sever _this_ wire, then this one, then wait 2 seconds and then sever this one? In that order?”

Ren tilted her head. “They’re very small.”

“Yes, Ren, I _know that_. I’m looking at them.”

“Give me a moment.”

Hux sighed, exasperated and more anxious than he’d care to admit. “Please, take as long as you like, it’s not like we’re on a _timer_ , or anything.”

Ren sat cross-legged in the middle of the room and went stiller than a statue. Outside, someone had started the speech to introduce him. He wondered idly why no one had come in to check on them, but was a little distracted by the bomb he was holding in the _palms of his hands_.

“Ren.”

The air shifted, going colder than Hux had felt in recent memory. Something dark seemed to have slithered into all the corners. Hux felt a fear that didn’t feel like it belonged to him - or rather, it felt like any fear he’d felt in his life belonged to _this_. It … touched him, like a physical thing. Like an animal, like it was alive. And there was a cold, controlled rage simmering in the back of his mind, out of the corner of his eye, just out of reach. Like if he turned around he’d be able to face it.

Was this the Dark Side?

If so, Hux did _not_ care for it. He shivered, nearly dropped the bomb. Less than one minute left on the timer. There was a dull thud outside but still, no one came in.

“ _Ren_ ,” he said, urgent and uncomfortable.

She didn’t move.

“Ren!”

She raised her hand toward Hux and the first wire cut itself, clean and perfect. Hux hoped to the Universe, the gods of all his favorite whiskeys, and the guards of every hell he didn’t believe in that he’d gotten the electrical engineering right on this thing. He’d never had his life so dependent on a blind guess before.

The next wire that raised of its own accord was _the wrong -_

“No! No Ren. Wait. Wait wait wait.”

She stopped. Still, she barely moved. Hux wasn’t even sure she was breathing. He was certainly breathing. His breath was embarrassingly quick and loud, the cloud of the Dark pulling all his vague anxieties about _holding a fucking bomb in his hands_ right to the front, turning them into real, honest Fear.

“It’s the next one, the one to the left - _my left, Ren -_ yes. That one.” Hux sighed.

She waited a few seconds - Hux watched the clock count down from 30 seconds, 29 seconds, 28 seconds - before cutting the final wire. The bomb went dark and the clock stopped.

Hux dropped it and sagged a little.

“For the love of _fuck_ ,” Hux hissed, pulling his coat back on. The horrible cold dissipated and Ren stood up.

“They’re calling you, Your Excellency.”

“Oh, bollocks.”

Of course _now_ was when Hux had to go deliver his speech - after he’d held a live bomb in his hands, after he’d been given some sort of horrible Void tongue-bath by the Dark Side of the Force.

Ren opened the door and Hux raised his eyebrows when he saw his entire security detail - and a few Academy cadets - on the ground, either unconscious or dead. Someone moved down the hall. Ren turned to him, voice hair raising and low.

“I will handle this.”

Hux muttered, “hurry up,” under his breath and made his way toward the stage.

The crowd was impeccably well behaved, of course, if a bit over-excited when Hux took his spot at the podium. He held up a hand and they went quiet immediately. Hux heard the unmistakable sound of blaster fire in the distance and chanced a glance off-stage: there was Ren, holding a man by the throat and surrounded by quite a lot of blood, and a _furious_ looking Phasma storming down the hall with a blaster in each hand and a bloody handprint on her face. Phasma stage-whispered, “how the _fuck_ did this happen?” at the same time Hux turned back to the crowd.

Right. This speech. Hux sighed almost imperceptibly.

Right.

“Cadets,” he said, addressing the crowd in his best Emperor voice, “I’d like to personally-”

Someone shot at him.

Someone _shot_ at him.

A bomb wasn’t enough, apparently, nor was the full-scale bloodbath happening offstage; someone had the _audacity_. To shoot at him. It was high, luckily -  singed the fabric hanging over his head. The crowd collectively gasped and ducked. It took almost all of Hux’s willpower not to roll his eyes at the entire ridiculous situation.

But before he could contemplate it anymore, someone was shooting at him again.

A lot, this time. A few people in the crowd screamed, and it erupted into chaos.

Hux ducked behind the podium, cursing so loudly that the microphone picked it up. He was _not_ equipped for a firefight. He was in a _cape_ , for fuck’s sake. He drew his blaster and took a breath, studied the angles the shots were coming from, and then stuck his head out and took a shot.

He missed, but mostly because the podium chose that moment to explode.

It couldn’t have been another bomb - he was too close to it and if it had been a bomb Hux would have been dead - so it had to have been blaster fire that destroyed it. Hux looked up, squinting through the screaming crowd and the smoke from the podium, but he still couldn’t see the shooter.

Ren suddenly ignited her lightsaber from offstage and yelled something at Hux, but it was too loud and chaotic to hear her.

The next blaster shot was dead on, and Hux had no cover. In the split second before it hit, he squeezed his eyes shut and cursed. He wanted his last word to be a curse.

It never hit him. The crowd went from screaming and running to gasping and _staring_ , and Hux looked up to find the blaster bolt just _suspended_ in midair, frozen inches from his face. For a second he just stared at it, shocked. A _blaster bolt_. In midair. Hux had never seen Ren do anything like that before - and it was clearly Ren. Hux could feel that freezing fear surrounding the blaster bolt, the telltale sign of the Dark Side of the Force.

He turned and yelled to Ren, who was standing at the corner of the stage with one side of her saber ignited.

“Cutting it a little close, there, Ren!”

Ren shook her head and took a step closer. When she spoke, her voice was dangerously soft and urgent, and her words were a shock straight to the base of Hux’s spine.

“That wasn’t me.”

Hux turned and, seemingly in slow motion, looked across the stage.

Crouched in the doorway with one hand outstretched, staring between Hux and the blaster bolt wearing an expression of utter astonishment as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just done, was Ben Solo.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hooo boy a lot of things happened in this chapter. what are we gonna do about this?
> 
> no, seriously,[tell me. ](https://francisthegreat.tumblr.com/)
> 
> also, a very special thanks to @El_Bell for reading so much craziness and porn and yelling about my grammar. i do not deserve you, angel.


	11. The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Life is a corrupting process... he who fears corruption, fears life."   
> -Saul David Alinsky

Ben wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

When they somehow managed to land on Arkanis (several miles from Academy airspace) with next to no detection or resistance, he was a little surprised.

When Poe and his team set the smallest, most undetectable, most intimidating looking bomb Ben had ever seen inside the Academy’s convention center and only lost two people, he was _very_ surprised.

When Ben and _his_ team (with a lot of help from Finn who, as it turned out, was downright terrifying in combat and Ben suspected more than a little Force sensitive) took out the Emperor’s entire security detail aside from General Phasma and Senka Ren without losing even a single person, Ben was shocked.

But standing on the Arkanis Academy stage, staring Hux in the face and stopping a blaster bolt _from his own soldier’s sniper fire_ mid-air, feeling the unmistakable freezing grip of the Dark on his heart – Ben wasn’t sure there even _was_ a word for this.

He didn’t know what had happened. He’d never used the Force on a scale like this before. It was completely impossible, but there it was: he was staring at the suspended blaster bolt with his own eyes.

He’d never felt fear like he had in the seconds before the shot. In fact, it felt less like fear and more like a living thing, something sentient, something that unraveled from inside his chest and enveloped him like a shadow. He didn’t think of anything: didn’t consider trying to use the Force, didn’t yell or scream or try to warn Hux, who was milliseconds away from dying and whose hair was so fucking orange and whose eyes were _so_ angry.

He didn’t try to do anything; he just reached forward with that horrible shadow in his chest – and every shred of fear he’d ever felt in his entire life paled in comparison to this moment – and the blaster bolt just. Stopped.

For a second, it was silent. Completely silent. Ben could hear nothing but the pounding of his own terrified heart and a deep, unnatural ringing in his ears and the hum of the blaster bolt. He stared at Hux, shocked to his core, and Hux stared back. Hux took a step in Ben’s direction, out of the path of the shot, and the sounds of the crowd filtered back in. Ben lost his concentration and the bolt exploded at Hux’s back.

Hux stood on the stage for a moment, looking between Ben on his left and Phasma and Senka Ren on his right. Ben wasn’t sure why but he felt like his entire life was hinging on this moment. Over his comm he heard Blue Leader screaming something, heard Poe saying his name over and over again, but it was - distant, impossible to make out. Hux’s eyes were so wide and so blue.

Another shot exploded behind Hux and he ducked, shook his head, and _ran_ towards Ben.

Ben’s ears were still ringing and he couldn’t feel his hands and he was shivering for some reason but literally nothing in the entire universe mattered at that moment because Hux launched himself at him, grabbed his jacket in both hands, and kissed him in front of the entire population of Arkanis.

Ben felt like he’d been waiting six months for this - no, he felt like he’d been waiting _twenty seven years for this_ \- but it still managed to take him by surprise. His mouth was so soft and so fucking hot and he still smelled like the ocean and his tongue tasted _exactly_ as Ben remembered it. Ben wrapped both hands around Hux’s wrists, afraid to touch his face like he so desperately wanted to, afraid to bury his hands in Hux’s ridiculous orange hair. His grip on Hux’s wrists would bruise, he was sure of that.

Hux, for his part, seemed just as surprised. He also seemed absolutely furious; his hands were so tight on Ben’s jacket that Ben heard something actually tear, and he pulled away to mutter “you son of a bitch,” against Ben’s mouth before kissing him again.

Distantly, as if he was surfacing from underwater, Ben’s awareness bled from _Hux’s mouth Hux’s body heat Hux’s hands against his chest_ to include minor details like the imminent explosion of the stage, the frantic screaming of the crowd, the fact that their faces were on _camera_ being broadcast across the galaxy, and Senka Ren walking across the stage with her lightsaber pointed at them.

Right.

Right.

Ren’s Force presence was a nightmare. It was nothing like little Rey’s had been as a child - conflicted, passionate, powerful, but good. Light. Happy, honest. This was like trying to stand against a hurricane. Ben felt overwhelmed just standing near her, fear and rage and power in her every step, only getting worse as she got closer. He gripped Hux’s wrist, pulled away and looked at him with wide eyes.  

Hux was a mess. His lips were swollen, red, halfway between a smile and a snarl and his eyes were - shit, they were furious. But they also looked. Relieved, almost.

“Emperor,” Ren said, and Hux suddenly shoved Ben away, eyes wide and frantic, mouth open and inviting and still wet from Ben’s tongue and -

“Kneel, Solo.”

Ren’s saber was pointed straight at Ben’s heart. He spared it a quick glance, registered that it was so close to his chest his jacket was starting to smoke, and looked back at Hux.

Hux was watching him silently, eyes hard and angry, but he licked at his lips almost absently, tasting Ben like he couldn’t help it.

Without really thinking about it, Ben knelt.

Ren’s saber came to rest right above his shoulder, humming low and even and terrifying, singeing the hair that always curled around Ben’s ears. He could smell it, sharp and acrid and all the sudden the whole situation came into relief all at once.

“Fuck,” Ben said under his breath, eyes never leaving Hux’s face, trying not to flinch away from the heat of the saber but mostly failing, “fuck, Hux. Shit.”

Somewhere off to Ben’s right, Poe was yelling something at him. Ben didn’t dare turn his head. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Hux. He’d never seen this particular expression on Hux’s face before. His eyes were wide, brilliantly blue and green, little flames in them from Ren’s saber. He looked terrifying. But Ren brought the weapon just a fraction of an inch closer and Ben saw a flash of fear in Hux’s eyes, the paralyzing kind. Like what he’d felt earlier.

“For the crime of espionage and infiltration for the Resistance,” said Ren, voice bone-deep and unsettling, “and for the crime of attempted murder against the Emperor, you, Ben Organa Solo, will die here.”

His mother was going to be crushed by this. He could still hear Poe screaming for him, fighting to get to him, but he couldn’t stop looking at Hux.

When Ben was a child, his father had secretly taken him to a First-Order occupied planet - before there had been an Emperor, when air space laws had been a bit more lax - and shown him what the locals had called the Cold Fire.

It was a deep sea volcano, some sort of thermal vent that involved actual combustion, impossible and brilliant and warm under the blue of the ocean’s surface. Ben had never, for the rest of his life, ever forgotten it.

Hux’s eyes looked exactly like that.

Ren raised her saber over Ben’s head and Ben felt a wave of frigid fear from his head to his shaking hands. He still couldn’t look away from Hux’s face.

Something crossed in front of Hux’s eyes in the second before Ren brought the saber down on Ben, and he grabbed Ren’s arm so fast Ben hardly even saw it.

Ren turned to him, barely-contained rage clear in every line of her body. It was consuming her. Her weapon sang with it.

“Wait. Wait.”

Ben tried not to let his shock show on his face, but he wasn’t having much luck with that today.

Hux looked briefly out at the crowd, registered the camera, and took his hand off Ren’s arm. He looked almost … embarrassed. Confused. Afraid. Then he blinked and it was gone, blank expression back on his face.

“I, um,” Hux cleared his throat. “We. We need him alive. Ren.”

“Emperor, _what_ -”

“Ren, I don’t have time for this. Get him on my ship.”

Ben raised an eyebrow, adrenaline making him dizzy, making him insane. He actually laughed. “You think I’m gonna just go quietly, Starkiller?”

Hux lowered his voice and spat, “I should let her fucking kill you.”

Ben looked at the burning heat in Hux’s expression, let his gaze drag obscenely down Hux’s whole body, and did a Very Bad Thing: he focused. He focused on the fear humming along his palms at the proximity of Ren’s lightsaber, he focused on all the anger in his chest at this absolute _monster_ of a man having such an unbreakable hold on him. He devoted megawatts of energy to focusing on the heat of Hux’s stare, the open, wet feel of his mouth, the taste of his tongue. The look on his face over the holo when he came, eyes fucking _open_ and staring straight at Ben, chest flushed and desperate.

He took all of those things and pushed them together into a scorching, unsteady ball of heat in his chest, and then he pushed it at Ren.

She slid back almost ten feet, hunched over like he’d punched her in the gut.

Ben stood. He felt - good, if he was being honest. There was a stained, addictive sort of power running through his fingertips, like if he reached out toward Ren with the right intent he could just - just end it. Right here.

Ren turned her head toward Hux to say something and that dark, sentient thing in Ben’s chest squeezed _hard,_ growled _no no no my Hux fucking mine_ and he threw his hand forward again, sending Ren into the air and across the stage, sending her crashing into the door at the other end, sending a spark of delicious electricity zinging through Ben’s arms and into the pit of his stomach.

“Ben!”

Poe was on the ground in front of the stage, a nasty gash on the side of his head but otherwise unharmed. He looked frantic.

Ben turned his head and Poe gasped, took an involuntary step back.

“Ben, your _eyes,_ ” Poe said, fear in his voice. “They’re not - they’re not right -”

Hux took that moment to point his blaster straight at Poe’s chest.

“No-”

Ben dove in between the two of them, throwing his hands up and blocking Poe from Hux’s view. He could see Ren advancing toward him again over Hux’s shoulder. He looked at Hux and extended both hands in front of him in a placating gesture, ignoring Ren for the moment.

Hux took half a step back just as Poe had, eyes going wide, hand shaking slightly on his weapon.

“He’s right,” Hux said under his breath, “your eyes are -”

“Please, Hux. Please. Don’t. Please don’t hurt him.”

Hux shook his head and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again his hard, blank expression was back. He leveled his blaster at Ben’s chest.

“I’ll shoot you both, then,” he said, voice cracking almost imperceptibly.

Ben put his hands up slowly, laced them and put them behind his head. Behind him, Poe hissed, “Ben, what the fuck are you doing?”

“If you let them go,” Ben said, speaking carefully, “I’ll go quietly. I’ll go with you. Just me. Okay? Just you and me. But you have to let them go.”

Ren reignited her lightsaber behind Hux, ready for a fight, but Hux held up his hand. She froze. Hux narrowed his eyes.

“Are you _giving yourself up_?”

“Only if you let the Resistance go. Right now. You let them all walk away. You don’t follow them.”

Poe’s voice over his shoulder suddenly said, “Ben, don’t -”

“Shut up, Dameron,” Ben said, eyes never leaving Hux’s face. “Get out of here.”

“Benny, please, you don’t have to -”

“I said, _go_. Now.”

When Poe finally went, Hux kept his blaster trained on Ben’s chest. He never took his eyes off Ben’s face. Ben felt something like relief. He dropped to one knee, hands still laced behind his head.

“Please. Emperor.”

Hux’s pupils dilated visibly, lips parted and cheeks a little flushed.

“Please call them off.”

Ren growled behind Hux, but Hux lifted his hand again and she cut herself off, seething. Hux brought his comm to his lips and spoke into it, “This is Hux. Hold your fire. Let them go.”

Phasma’s voice crackled through the comm, furious and disbelieving. “Fucking _what_?”

Hux licked his lips as Ben settled onto both knees. “We have what we need.”

Ben closed his eyes and finally allowed himself to sigh, relief and exhaustion flooding through his chest as all his adrenaline left him in one big rush. “Thank you,” he whispered, eyes still closed.

When he opened them, Hux seemed to breathe a sigh of relief too. He said something under his breath, something that sounded like “that’s better,” but that couldn’t have been it.

Ben watched the ships leave, unharmed, and spared one thought for his friends, for his family before turning back to Hux and offering him his hands.

“I’m all yours, Starkiller.”

Hux gave him a long, scorching look, then turned on his heel and walked in the other direction.

\---

The shuttle was much quieter than Ben expected.

He’d hoped he’d have some time alone with his thoughts, possibly to contemplate whether his actions over the past hour had all been some horrible, life-ruining mistake, but it was absolutely impossible to think when it was so quiet his cell.

His _cell_.

There was a cell in the shuttle. It was tiny and uncomfortable, fitted with nothing but an unnaturally hard bench and no windows. Ben couldn’t imagine anything more unnecessarily villainous than this cell on board the Emperor’s personal shuttle.

Ren had put a too-tight pair of binders on his wrists and thrown him into the cell in complete silence, and Ben had gone willingly – as per his promise – but he couldn’t help but wonder where Hux was.

The entire ride to the ship, base, wherever the fuck they were taking him, was absolutely silent. It set Ben’s teeth on edge. He heard footsteps outside the door, but nothing else. No one ever came in. A few times the footsteps would pause right in front of the door, like someone had been pacing and just stopped, hovering, outside the cell for a few minutes. Then the footsteps would fade off and Ben would be left with his thoughts again.

His thoughts consisted mostly of Hux.

He knew he should be afraid for his life, and he was – a little. But, as per usual, Ben’s instinctual reaction to the situation was one of excitement. Curiosity.  

So he wondered what the Resistance would do, and he wondered a little about Poe and his mom and his father and what they must have been thinking about that Arkanis video footage, but mostly he was consumed with one thought:

Why would Hux not look at him?

He knew he was out there. He could feel Hux’s Force presence, but it was deliberately distant, like Hux was trying to shut him out. Still, he knew it was Hux hovering outside his door after the second time it happened – there was one moment, one split second when Hux’s defense dropped and Ben felt him, all of him, overwhelmed and furious and frustrated, terrified that if he saw Ben’s face he would fall apart, but then Hux imagined a wall again and his Force presence cut itself off. Ben lost him.

The rest of the ride to the shuttle was uneventful, so Ben closed his eyes and let the exhaustion hovering in the back of his mind overtake him.

When he woke up, he’d been moved to an interrogation room.

_How had that happened?_

Ben looked around, took stock of his surroundings. Yep, this was definitely an interrogation room, and the hum under his feet told him he was on a _huge_ ship. So. Someone had gotten him off the shuttle without waking him. He wondered idly if drugs were involved, but found he didn’t care much.

He looked down. Fuck, he was definitely still restrained, and it was definitely worse than before. His whole body was strapped to an upright table. He looked up at the camera in the corner of the room and raised an eyebrow.

“Kinky,” he muttered under his breath, grinning in spite of himself. He never had had a particularly sane reaction to danger.

His whole body tensed up with he heard Hux’s voice outside the door.

“ –not going to tolerate this insolence from you any more, Ren –”

“Emperor, please,” Ren scoffed. Her voice was so awful through the metal of the door, rattling it every time she spoke. “This is a weakness on your part and nothing more. You know it. I know it.”

Hux’s voice rose about 3 octaves. “A _weakness_? A weak – a weakness.”

“You _want_ him,” Ren spat, disgust in her tone. “You want me to keep him alive. For you.”

“You saw him stop that blaster bolt, Ren.”

Ren was silent for a moment and Ben felt a strange mix of pride and fear for what he’d done.

Really, though, what _had_ he done?

“If you’re suggesting he can be turned –”

“I’m suggesting that you defer to my _fucking_ absolute authority and do your kriffing job, Senka. Get out of my sight.”

Ben was left in silence – he was getting tired of it – and was beginning to wonder if Hux would ever deign to look at him ever again.

The door opened very suddenly and Ben hastily rearranged his expression into his best “I was not eavesdropping” face. He looked up, wondering what Hux wanted, pleased he was finally going to speak to him, to look at him, but it wasn’t Hux there.

It was Ren.

She stood across from him, completely still and silent, and for a second Ben was afraid before his truly terrible instincts took over for him and he grinned.

“Why’d he send you in here?”

Ren bristled. “He didn’t send me anywhere.”

Ben rolled his eyes, suddenly feeling dizzy and reckless. High. The power coming off Ren seemed worse in the cramped air of the cell, seemed better, seemed somehow _more._ He could feel it zinging over the surface of his skin like standing outside in a lightning storm. He started clenching his fists without really realizing it.

“Is that,” Ben tried to gesture to her face with his bound hands, “apparatus – is that necessary for you? I mean. Can you take that shit off so we can talk like grown ups?”

He didn’t actually expect her to, but she did with very little fanfare.

Her face was different than he expected – similar to when she’d been small, when he’d known her as Rey, but different in all the ways that counted. A huge, awful scar ran from her hairline to her neck, over one eye, disappearing into her clothes. The eye under the scar was white, knotted with scar tissue and hard to look at. The other eye was an absolutely terrible orange color. It glowed like there was a volcano inside her.

Ben raised his eyebrows and whistled. He nodded at her eye.

“That’s a funky color. Well, I mean,” he grimaced, “they’re both funky colors but. That one. What is that?”

Ren smiled, and it twisted her whole face into something terrifying. The bottom dropped out of Ben’s stomach and he got the distinct impression that his fear was somehow coloring the air.

“You haven’t seen the video from Arkanis, then. You haven’t seen your eyes when you pushed me across that stage?”

Ben shook his head. He knew, though. He’d felt it.

“You _ruined_ him,” Ren said, hate in every syllable. “He was perfect, he was everything this new empire needed and you _ruined_ him.”

Ben huffed, head spinning with the hate and rage rolling off Ren in waves. He could taste it in the back of his throat. It tasted warm, like blood – actually, it tasted a little like Hux.

“If you’re suggesting I’ve somehow made Hux less of a complete fucking monster,” Ben said, still grinning, “you’re even crazier than I am.”

Ren’s eyebrows drew together, as if she hadn’t considered this. Ben pushed.

“You think that piece of shit can be _saved?_ You think _I’m_ capable of making someone a _better person_?” Ben leaned forward as far as he could and laughed in Ren’s face.

Ren leaned forward, uncomfortably close, and raised a gloved hand in front of Ben’s face. Ben had the distinct feeling of being suddenly submerged under very warm water. He pushed back, emptying his mind like Luke had taught him when he was a kid. He tried to focus on the Force, the way it _flowed through him_ or some other Jedi shit, but it was increasingly difficult with the way Ren’s rage was filling the room.

Ren reached down and Ben tensed, but she reached past his face for the button to release his restraints. He blinked at her, stunned, before she took a step back. Her one good eye was the same color as her lightsaber, frightening and hateful.

Ben rubbed at his wrists, took a few halting steps around the interrogation table so it was between them. He looked up at Ren.

“Why’d you do that?”

“I saw what you did. On Arkanis.”

Ben didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You stopped that blaster bolt in _mid air_. Untrained as you are. It was - admirable.”

“Admirable.”

“Yes.”

“Admirable enough to let me go?”

Ren laughed, scar pulling when she moved her mouth. “Of course not.” That awful pressure poked at Ben’s head again and he understood.

“Oh, I see.” He made two very tight fists and took a step back. “Admirable enough to warrant a fighting chance. Instead of an execution.”

“Chance?” Ren scoffed. “Admirable enough that you can die on your feet. That’s all.”

Ben nodded, grinning. He felt like maybe he ought to be a bit more somber about the situation but … he did love a good fight.

Ren snarled and her helmet shot from the floor towards him, unnaturally fast. It hit him in the gut like a cannon shot, all the air leaving his chest at once. He could feel icy, unnatural fingers poking at the inside of his mind.

“He told me not to kill you,” she said, half of her mouth pulling up. There was something insane in her eyes; she loved a good fight too. Her face might have been beautiful once. It maybe still was, except for the hatred hanging off her like a shadow. Maybe because of it.

“I heard him say that,” Ben said. He closed his eyes and tried to focus, tried to center himself. He let Ren fade into the background, then he picked up the helmet where he had landed at his feet and hurled it at Ren.

It missed her, of course.

“I’m going to take your body to him,” Ren said viciously, pacing around him in the small room. “I’m going to take your body to him and I’m going to throw it at his feet. See if he denies his _weakness_ then.”

Ben laughed, head swimming. Ren kept talking. Ben matched each of her steps, keeping a careful distance, keeping his mind as blank as he could. She didn’t seem to be able to get into his head.

“Then maybe,” Ren said, eyes narrowing, “maybe he’ll mourn you. Maybe he’ll _miss_ you.” Ben felt an inexplicable itching sensation in his chest. It was terribly uncomfortable.

Ren’s voice was dangerously soft when she said, “then I’ll have to kill him.”

_Kill him_.

Something in Ben’s chest snapped.

Everything he’d been trying to do fell apart – all his careful distance, all his cool calm, all his focus. Everything was burning.

It was like he’d been hit by lightning.

He reached forward and Ren slammed backwards into the wall, body denting the metal, expression shocked and then absolutely furious. She dug invisible fingers into his mind, but Ben was no longer concerned with blocking them, or deflecting them, or stopping them.

He obliterated them.

He imagined them like they were in his hand, and he replayed what she’d said about Hux, and then he crushed them. Ren gasped like it caused her physical pain.

She didn’t try to touch his mind again.

Ben was shaking. His whole body was shaking. He took a few steps in Ren’s direction, a horrible, stifling, possessive rage crawling up his spine, and reached for her again. She grabbed at her throat, feet lifted off the ground as Ben dragged her up the wall with the Force.

“Don’t fucking touch him.”  

Ren grinned, blind eye somehow _looking at him (_ and if that wasn’t fucking unsettling) _,_ and shoved forward with both her hands. Ben slid backwards, not enough to knock him over but enough to break his hold on her, and glanced at the interrogation chair.

He could see his own reflection in the top of it, just a flash of his face, but his _eyes_ were –

_Who the fuck is that?_

It was like someone threw cold water on him. He stumbled, faltered, and Ren smelled it and moved. Ben felt himself thrown backwards against the interrogation table with so much force he actually felt one of his ribs crack.

Ren hit him in the face, fist opening up a bloody split in his lip that tasted like copper, reminded him uncomfortably of Hux. Ben threw up his arms too late, entirely off balance, all his movements just a hair too slow. Ren closed in.

She was on him before he even realized it, pressing him against the table, finally igniting the lightsaber she’d been ignoring before, blade inches from Ben’s face. He could feel the heat of it, could smell the ozone and blood and power leaking out of it.

He grabbed the hilt with both hands, desperately pushing it away from him but – shit.

She was stronger.

She pushed forward with _one hand_ , other hand holding him against the table by the throat, and the saber inched closer to his face. He was going to lose.

An icy shard of fear shot through his chest.

“You’re not strong enough to stop me,” Ren said, quiet and low. “You’re afraid you’re never going to be strong enough. I can feel it.” She leaned down and whispered to him, saber glowing brilliantly orange between them, “I’m going to make it hurt when I kill him.”

“ _Ren.”_

Both of them turned, Hux’s tone of voice absolutely impossible to ignore. He was standing in the doorway, tall and angry and imposing, still wearing that ridiculous (incredible) ceremonial military suit he’d been dressed in for his speech on Arkanis. Ben had never seen anything like it. The possessive thing in his chest _screamed_ for him.

“Release him. Immediately.”

Ren bared her teeth at Hux but released Ben, backing away with her saber still humming. She took a step in Hux’s direction and Ben lost his fucking mind.

She was against the wall again before anyone knew what was going on, and Ben couldn’t hear a damn thing over the thundering in his ears. He felt like he was going to catch fire. He reached for her saber, rage and possessiveness searing through his chest. He wanted it in his hands. He wanted to gut her with it.

Hux suddenly walked forward and slapped him in the face.

“Ben. Ben. Get your _fucking_ shit together.”

The ringing in Ben’s ears receded a little, but he still couldn’t stand to have Ren and Hux in the same room. He growled at her, an actual animal sound, and Hux’s eyes wavered. He looked – he looked wary. No, he looked afraid. He grabbed the front of Ben’s jacket and looked him full in the face.

“Look at me.”

Ben fixed his eyes on Hux, still feeling like he was burning, like he had an entire electrical storm under his skin, like if he just reached out he could snuff out _everything_ in his way.

“You need to breathe,” Hux said, voice oddly soft. He didn’t look away from Ben’s face but said a little louder over his shoulder, “Ren, get out of here. Close the door.”  

She didn’t move, furious energy just simmering in the back of Ben’s mind. He could still taste it.

“Ren.”

Ren finally complied, powered down her saber and left the room in a flurry of unresolved anger.

The second the door closed, Ben felt … exhausted. All Ren’s rage and hatred and energy left the room with her, and looking at Hux with that expression on his face – it just made Ben feel. So.

He sagged against the interrogation table, leaned his head back a little and closed his eyes. Hux didn’t move, fists still tight in his jacket.

“Open your eyes, you idiot,” Hux said softly.

He did, and Hux breathed a sigh of obvious relief. Ben grinned tiredly, half his face pulling up.

“Miss me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> regrettably not as funny as the others. but i guess sometimes you gotta go hard in the paint.  
> i suppose that happens when your precious baby angel is getting momentarily eaten by the dark side? 
> 
>  
> 
> ...can you guys guess what's about to happen (i was gonna say next chapter is nsfw but this entire fic is nsfw so)  
> god bless El, who keeps telling me when i say something that sounds stupid.


	12. Shut Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't question Hux's methods on how to deal with an unstable Dark Side force sensitive. Just. Don't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwr-0Ps1xY8) while I wrote this.
> 
> *ps: hux does briefly step on ben without his explicit permission in this chapter, and even though consent is implied it of course should always be given explicitly. which could possibly be seen as dubious consent if you squint. just wanted to warn. *

“Miss me?”

Hux scowled, shoved Ben back where his hands were still gripping his jacket, then let go when Ben hissed. He raised an eyebrow and Ben shrugged.

“Ribs.”

Hux looked at Ben’s torso, fingers feeling for the cracked rib through his shirt, desperately trying to avoid touching Ben’s skin. Still, it didn’t help much. He could feel the heat of him like a furnace.

He couldn’t touch him; he could hardly look at him. He’d tried so hard to avoid even being in the same room as him ever since _that fucking kiss_ and he’d done a great job of it, too, except that the idiot had to go and get himself in mortal danger.

Though after staring at Ben’s frighteningly orange eyes, so horribly like old images of the Sith and so horribly unlike the warm darkness he couldn’t stop dreaming about, Hux wasn’t sure who Ben was in danger from – Ren or himself.  

Ben looked at him in silence for a moment, then laughed inexplicably. Hux wondered if he’d heard him. Ren was a mind reader, it only made sense that Ben would be one as well. He choked off with a hiss when Hux found the cracked rib and pushed. Hard.

“What the fuck-”

“You absolute  _ bastard _ ,” Hux spat, furious all over again.

“What?”

“You knew! That’s what was bothering you when we …” Hux trailed off, face hot. He spared one tiny, fleeting thought for the way Ben’s back had arched when he came before he shut it away. “When we spoke. You knew and you almost let them kriffing kill me.”

Ben looked at him, eyes finally back to normal, huge and sad and expressive. He looked wrecked. Exhausted. Still a little out of control.

“If you weren’t such a weak-willed  _ fool _ ,” Hux said, desperate but not sure what for, “you would have.”

Ben squeezed his eyes shut.

“I couldn’t,” he said, expression angry. “I just. You – I couldn’t.”

“Am I supposed to thank you?”

“For saving your fucking life?”

“It wouldn’t have needed saving if you’d kept your huge cock to yourself on Tarma, you  _ arse _ hole.”

Ben’s expression cracked into something warm and he grinned, sly and familiar.

“Huge cock?”

“Seriously?”

Ben grimaced and his eyes went orange for a second again, unnatural and cracked through the irises. He grabbed the front of Hux’s jacket. Hux’s stomach dropped, an irrational fear shooting through his chest.

“Hux, shit – ”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Hux whispered, tone of voice far more concerned and gentle than he meant for it to be.

Ben gritted his teeth and slouched forward, sliding down the interrogation table until he sat on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest.

“Leftovers,” Ben said. “It’s – oh,  _ shit _ , it’s. Hux, there’s so much.”

“What? So much what?”

“ _ Power _ .”

Something low and dark crept into Ben’s voice, staining it. It sent a shiver of fear through Hux.  Ben gripped his wrist hard enough to bruise and said, “touch me.”

“What?”

“Please.  _ Please _ touch me.” 

Hux hesitated. He couldn’t – he hadn’t even touched Ben’s skin when he’d lost control and kissed him on Arkanis. He just. He couldn’t. Not if he was going to maintain any measure of control.

Ben growled, expression darkening.

“Do it. You want to, I know you do. I can feel it.” Ben leaned forward, sat up on his knees and pressed into Hux’s space. “ _ Fuck _ , I can feel everything. Everything.”

Hux gripped the front of Ben’s jacket, tightening his hold until the leather of his gloves creaked, leaned forward and whispered, inches from Ben’s mouth, “I – what the fuck have you done to me, you disaster of a man?”

Ben pulled them even closer together, breath warm on Hux’s face. They still had yet to touch skin to skin. Hux could feel some sort of – energy, rolling off Ben in warm, electric waves. He smelled different, like ozone. Like a lightning storm.

“I could have killed her, Hux,” Ben whispered, voice a little manic. “I could have killed her. I almost did.  _ I wanted to _ . Shit. I could have.  _ Gutted _ her, do you understand how much power I have?”

Hux’s breath sped up and there was very little he could do about it. The more Ben spoke, the more his presence raised the hairs on Hux’s arms. He was shaking. 

“Solo,” Hux said, trying to distance himself and failing, “you need to calm down.” 

Ben nodded, bit his lip, and then looked at Hux and shook his head. His hands gripped the collar of Hux’s jacket and he pulled him closer again. 

“I - I don’t. Yes. I do, I feel. Too much but. But I don’t - I don’t need to calm down because - fuck. Shit. Hux, I. She was going to kill you.” 

He was all over the place. He seemed to have a hard time remembering that he was  _ supposed  _ to be calming down. Hux wanted to touch him so badly he could feel the tingle of it in his palms. 

“She wouldn’t have-”

“No. No, she wouldn’t have because I would have killed her.” Ben’s face was flushed, eyes still dark, still safe, but fever-bright, full of too much energy. “If  _ anyone _ . Anyone. If anyone touches you, Hux.” Hux witnessed the moment when something crawled out of the corner of the room and back into Ben’s chest. 

“If anyone touches you,” he repeated, face so vicious and dark it made Hux’s heart race, “I’ll fucking tear them apart.” He shook harder, teeth chattering, knuckles white where he gripped Hux’s coat. His eyes were so dark they looked black, but there was a vein of orange around his fat irises. 

“Ben.” 

Ben’s voice was surprised, reverent, as if he couldn’t quite believe his own power. “I could do it,” he whispered, releasing Hux to look at his own hands. “I could do it.” 

Hux sharpened his voice. “Ben.” 

Ben looked up, cheeks and lips flushed and eyes just the slightest shade of wrong, tainted and frightening and irresistible. 

“Calm. Down,” Hux said. 

Ben shook his head, eyes wide. “I. I can’t, I - I can’t.” 

Hux shoved Ben backward with one hand on his chest until his back hit the  upright  interrogation table. He pushed, holding him there. Some of the stain bled out of Ben’s eyes. 

“You have to,” Hux said, sure it was true but not sure why. This Ben would be  _ his _ and he’d be a terror, a monster, he and Ren would be the worst and most frightening Knights the galaxy had ever seen - why did that thought make Hux shudder? Why did he hate it so much? 

“I can’t.” Ben grabbed the front of Hux’s coat again but didn’t pull, just hung his hands there. His eyes focused on Hux’s face. “Hux. Make me.” 

The bottom dropped out of Hux’s stomach. “What?” 

“Make me calm down. Just - Shit. Just. Please. I can’t - make me do it.” 

Hux looked down at Ben’s hands, at a loss. “I...how?” 

Ben’s tone of voice when he spoke next was so desperate, so dangerous it made Hux’s head spin. 

“ _ Touch me _ .” 

Hux could feel Ben’s body heat through the fabric where he touched his chest, and he shifted his hand just barely toward the collar of his shirt, pinky finger brushing the bare skin of Ben’s collarbone. Ben’s eyes fluttered closed and he gasped, “Emperor.” 

Hux’s control snapped like a steel cable - all at once, dangerously, recklessly. All the sudden his breath was so fast, so shallow; his hands were so hot. He grabbed Ben’s jacket and tore it down his arms. 

“Stand up,” he whispered, inches from Ben’s mouth. It felt like he was breathing his air, some of Ben’s mental state leaking into him: unsteady, too hot, alarmingly out of control. 

Ben didn’t stand fast enough, so Hux stood, bent down, gripped his collar and hauled him to his feet. Ben’s hands were shaking so hard he couldn’t even keep them on Hux’s chest. 

Hux slammed him into the interrogation table, strange mix of satisfaction and concern shooting through his chest when Ben’s head cracked against the metal. Ben’s hands were in tight fists, resting against Hux’s coat. He pulled them back to look at them again, and a tiny spark crawled along his palm. 

It must have been a trick of the light. Hux blinked and it was gone, and Ben’s face was so red, and he was panting so hard he was nearly gasping, and Hux had barely touched him. 

“It’s - it’s not enough,” Ben said lowly. He balled his hands into fists again. “It’s everywhere, it’s  _ everywhere,  _ it’s -” 

Hux slapped him. So hard his hand stung, so hard Ben’s head hit the metal of the table again. He took one of Ben’s fists in his hands and something scorching and electric shot through his whole body at the feeling of his skin and  _ how long _ he’d waited for this. 

He wrenched Ben’s fist down to his side and restrained it on the table, then did the other one. Ben let out a shaky breath and licked his lips. Hux took a step back, feeling somehow better with Ben restrained against the table.

“Why are you here?”

Ben blinked, eyes glassy. “I - what?”

Hux stepped close enough to run fingers over the waistband of Ben’s pants. He felt insane, off-balance, cruel and vindictive and concerned all at once. Ben shivered. 

“Why. Are you here?”

Ben shook his head, eyes huge and dark and confused. When Hux pushed his shirt up just enough to graze his fingers over the skin of Ben’s stomach, an invisible Something dented the wall behind Hux and the lights flickered. 

Ben’s skin was so warm. After so long with nothing but his voice, his skin was scorching. Unbearable. 

“Why are you here?” Hux asked again, voice softer than before. He scratched his nails through the trail of hair on Ben’s stomach like he’d seen him do that night on the holo. 

Ben made a high, breathy noise, so gorgeous and helpless it nearly stopped Hux in his tracks.

“I.” Ben looked at him and flushed even further. “ _ Oh, _ ” he sighed, “for you, for you. All for you.”

Hux felt all the breath leave his lungs. He ached to touch him; his whole body burned with it. Without the jacket Ben’s shirt looked so thin, Hux could feel the heat of his skin through it. 

“Please, Hux,” Ben said, voice desperate and dark, “please, I’m - I’m  _ on fire _ . I can’t - I can’t. There’s so much, there’s so much power, it’s  _ too much _ .” His voice crawled towards hysterical and the hairs on the back of Hux’s neck raised. He was reminded of when he was a Lieutenant on the Finalizer, when he’d sneak down to the engine rooms just to warm his toes. The hum of the machine, the power of it. How standing in the same room as all that raw energy had felt dangerous. 

Ben’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes were shot through with yellow and orange again and he looked sick, he looked frantic and afraid and feral. He shook his head. “I had no idea, I had no idea it would be like this.” 

Hux moved closer like he was drawn by a magnet. He brushed his fingers over Ben’s bare arms, the most physical contact he could stand without losing his mind, and watched Ben’s forearms shift. Beautiful. “What’s it like?” he asked softly, unable to help himself. 

“Worse, it’s getting worse again, it’s - it’s like there’s too much under my skin, Hux, _Hux_ , please, please, let me go, please let me touch you, please, I’ll die if I don’t,” Ben gasped, eyes the wrong color. “I need to touch you, _you’re mine,_ you’re mine and no one else can _fucking_ have you, you _belong to me_ , I need you-” his voice was pleading and terrifyingly vicious in turns, dark and low and desperate. 

Ben looked at him and strained against the table, so savage it made Hux’s heart thud in his chest. He realized he was terrified. Ben looked nothing like himself. 

The cuffs around Ben’s hands creaked ominously, Ben’s expression so awful that he looked like a different man. One of the overhead lights shattered, and all four walls bent out at once, as if there was suddenly too much pressure in the room. 

“You’re fucking  _ mine _ ,” Ben whispered, urgently. He spoke with his teeth clenched together, whole body trembling. “Mine.” 

Hux’s ears were ringing. Ben was panting, looking at Hux’s eyes, his lips, dragging his gaze down Hux’s body like he owned it. Hux felt horribly  _ seen _ , objectified, electrified. Still terrified.

Hux hated being terrified. It made him furious. 

He released the restraints and Ben lunged for him like an animal. Hux used Ben’s own reckless momentum to lift him off his feet and slam him into the floor on his back. He didn’t pull his strength at all, felt another twist of brutal satisfaction mixed with concern before settling his weight on Ben’s chest with a forearm braced against his throat. 

“I’m going to set something straight for you here, Ben,” Hux breathed, and their faces were so close together and Ben still smelled like ozone and electricity but his body was  _ so  _ hot and it was  _ right under him  _ and Hux wanted so much all at once. He pushed with his forearm until Ben’s face turned red and the unnatural Sith orange started to bleed from his eyes. 

“I don’t belong to you. Do you understand? I’m not  _ yours _ .” He shifted, moved his forearm off Ben’s throat and grabbed his face in both hands, thumbs brushing Ben’s cheekbones. He watched Ben lick his lips without really thinking about it. The feeling of his skin, touching his face like that with both of his hands, it was - a lot. Hux looked Ben in the eyes again. When he spoke next his voice lowered of its own accord, words so true that he felt them in a vicious rush through his body as soon as he said them.

“You’re  _ mine _ .”

Ben grinned and it was wrong, it was insane, it was so close to unhinged that Hux wanted to look away from it. But he didn’t. 

“That too,” Ben said, raising both his hands and putting them on Hux’s back. Hux realized he was straddling him on the floor, knees digging into the metal. “But if you think you don’t belong to me just as much,” he sat up with a strength that punched all the air out of Hux’s lungs, holding Hux in his lap with both hands, crushing them together, suffocatingly hot and overwhelming, “then you’re fooling yourself. Emperor.” 

The spot on his back where Ben was holding him prickled with what Hux was so sure was  _ electricity _ ; the hairs on the back of Hux’s neck actually stood all the way up. Ben dragged his hands down to the hem of Hux’s jacket and slipped them underneath, got them on Hux’s bare skin. 

It was scorching. Ben made a sound dangerously close to a moan. “Fuck.” 

That was it. Hux broke. 

He stood up so fast it made his own head spin, and Ben blinked up at him deliriously before he moved to get up too, or to drag Hux back down, or - 

Hux put a foot on Ben’s chest. 

“Stay the fuck there,” he said lowly, hardly recognizing his own voice. It was shaking. He was shaking. He felt like he was inside an electrical storm, seconds,  _ inches _ away from getting struck by lightning and the shock of it crawled over his skin, inside his mouth, his hands, his chest. He was losing his mind. 

Ben looked up at him with an expression almost reverent, and pushed against Hux’s foot. Hux put more weight into it and Ben thudded back down to the floor, head smacking against the metal and a disbelieving laugh escaping his lips. Hux didn’t take his foot off Ben’s chest as he tore his coat off and threw it on the floor. He didn’t look away from Ben’s eyes - finally, finally darkening again - as he stripped out of his jacket, his vest, his shirt. 

Hux moved his foot off and Ben’s eyes flashed, but Hux’s whole body was singing with electricity and  _ power  _ and  _ control _ and he wasn’t quite ready to give it up yet. He pressed his boot against the hard line of Ben’s cock in his pants and Ben’s eyes went wide. Shocked, impossibly dark. Familiar. Perfect. 

Hux pushed threateningly against Ben’s cock, unbuttoned his pants. Left them like that and took off his undershirt, watched Ben’s eyes track the rise and fall of his naked chest. His dog tags. The remaining overhead lights started to flicker wildly, the air wavering with something that smelled like electricity. Ben’s head tilted back, exposed the long, vulnerable line of his throat. The freckles over it. Hux kept his boot on Ben’s cock. Pushed a little, reminded him it was there. Ben hissed, sound opening up into something broken and desperate at the end. The tension seemed to be leaving his body in increments. 

“Don’t move,” Hux warned, voice still so low it was almost unrecognizable. He reached up and ran a hand through his hair. Ben licked his lips.

Hux got his pants off in record time, was naked before Ben seemed to register that he’d moved, and he put his bare foot back on Ben’s chest. Felt the searing heat of his skin through Ben’s clothes. He pushed Ben into the floor with more of his body weight than he should have and Ben gasped, curled his hands into fists like he was trying to claw at the floor. 

“Emperor.” 

This was nothing like the first time. This time, there was an edge of utter hysteria in both of them, the kind that felt dangerous. This time Hux carried six months of phone calls, shameful drunk fantasies, six months of filthy dreams and frustration. This time Hux felt an ache in his  _ chest _ as well as his cock, he ached to touch Ben less as a random warm body and more as  _ Ben, Ben Solo, mine, that fucking backstabbing whore _ . This time when Ben gasped his name it was  _ his _ , weighted and inevitable and damning, and it made Hux shudder all the way to his fucking toes. 

Ben reached for him, reached out to touch his ankle with something desperate in his eyes and Hux barked, “Don’t. Move.”  

The lights stopped flickering. 

“Do you have  _ any  _ idea,” Hux said, hands wandering down his own chest, “the problems you’ve caused me in the last six months?” 

Ben barked out a laugh, and for a split second his expression was painfully familiar, but his laugh cut off into a strangled, desperate noise and Ben threw his head back again. Screwed his eyes shut. Arched his back. He seemed to be having a very difficult time staying himself. 

“Pay attention,” Hux snapped. He took his foot off Ben’s chest and Ben made a disappointed noise, opened his eyes and looked at Hux. 

Fuck, but his eyes were incredible. Finally back to normal, so dark and so beautiful that it took all of Hux’s willpower not to sigh. They were wide, wet, open and vulnerable and nearly black against his skin, still fever-flushed and sickly pale. His eyelashes were so long. 

“Hello,” Hux said under his breath, unable to keep the relief off his face. Ben blinked, his focus on Hux like a physical weight. The air around him hummed with it.

“Sit up.” 

Hux didn’t think he’d ever seen someone move so fast. He pressed his lips together to keep from grinning the same deranged expression Ben had worn earlier. He felt like he was going to tip over into vicious insanity. He felt dangerous. 

“Take off your clothes. Now.” 

Ben actually tore his shirt trying to get it off fast enough, hands shaking so hard Hux felt a stab of sympathy. It couldn’t have been easy. 

“Quickly, now,” he said under his breath, impatient even as he watched Ben strip faster than he’d ever seen anyone do anything. As soon as Ben was (gloriously, beautifully, perfectly) naked, Hux pushed him back onto the floor flat on his back.

He wanted to stay there for hours, standing naked over Ben in nothing but his dog tags while Ben laid on his back on the hard metal floor, berating him for everything that he’d put him through in the last six months. But his hands were shaking. The soles of his feet, the inside of his ribs, the back of his neck all prickled with electricity. With every movement of Hux’s chest Ben’s cock twitched, hard and flushed and angry. It had to hurt.

Hux couldn’t take it anymore. 

He dropped back down to his knees, straddled Ben and they both gasped at the heat of it, of finally,  _ finally _ touching skin to skin. Ben’s shaking hands came up to Hux’s back, searingly hot, and just didn’t stop  _ touching.  _ He couldn’t seem to stop, his hands on Hux’s back, his shoulders, down to his hips, up his sides. He laid a huge hand flat on Hux’s chest and Hux shivered, the movement made a hundred times worse with the way Ben’s obscenely huge cock rubbed against his ass. 

“Fuck,” Hux said. “Fuck, shit. Ben.”

Ben’s eyes were so wide, roving over Hux’s whole body just like his hands, like he couldn’t help himself. When he spoke his voice was softer than Hux had ever heard it, reverent and singing with barely contained energy. 

“Hux. Starkiller, Starkiller,  _ my Hux _ , I missed you, I missed you.” 

Hux whimpered, a short, high, terribly vulnerable sound that he hated immediately. “Shut up,” he said, voice cracking. “Shut up, shut up.” 

Ben huffed out an unstable sound that should have been a laugh but wasn’t, held out a hand and a little bottle of lube pulled itself out of the pocket of his pants and went flying into his hand. Hux rolled his eyes and grabbed it. 

“Still haven’t changed, then,” he said under his breath, leaning forward again just to feel Ben’s chest against his, so searingly hot he wanted to suffocate. 

“No,” Ben said, and it felt important, too important.  _ Still haven’t changed _ . There was something impossibly heavy in the air between them. Hux realized he needed that to be true, more than he’d ever thought. He needed it so badly he ached.  _ Still haven’t changed.  _

“Haven’t,” Ben whispered loud and harsh, and his voice cracked when he pulled Hux flush against him, one hand on his back and the other scorching and huge against the back of Hux’s neck. They were so fucking close Hux couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to.    

Ben parted his legs and pulled them up to his chest, eyes senselessly, impossibly dark, and said lowly, “Please. Please.” 

Hux shook his head and pushed Ben’s legs back down, had the lube open and one arm behind him before Ben seemed to register what was going on. He worked one finger inside himself, then two, and murmured, “Shut up,” at the same time Ben’s mouth fell open and he said, “Shit. Hux. Fuck.” 

Ben reached for him, hands still shaking, long beautiful fingers still crawling with electricity, and Hux slapped him away. 

“Put your hands behind your,  _ oh shit _ , your head, you fuck. I don’t -” Hux added a third finger and a truly ridiculous amount of lube too quickly and hissed, and Ben’s eyes were wide and disbelieving, mouth slack and wet and open. “I don’t trust you.” 

Ben obeyed, expression painfully present, focused, and disbelievingly distant at the same time. He laid on his back with his hands behind his head, watching Hux open himself up over him. 

He pulled three fingers out and shifted over Ben, grabbed his ridiculous cock ran a slick fist over it before Ben shook his head, ghost of a smile on his face. He looked almost like he had on the holo. Almost. 

“Not enough,” Ben said, voice low and a little smug. Mostly still desperate. “Just one more. Please, please, Hux, let me.” 

Hux growled, sneered in Ben’s face and sat on his cock with very little ceremony, mostly out of spite. He wasn’t sure if it was the best or worst decision he’d ever made, because Ben was right, three fingers had  _ not  _ been enough and even with all that lube he felt like he was going to break in half, it was too much and  _ kriffing hell  _ he was fucking huge, really it was outrageous, but it was also  _ good _ and Ben was so warm and Hux wanted it so badly he could taste it in the back of his throat. Ben’s face went completely slack, expression shocked and gorgeous, and his head hit the floor with a loud  _ thunk _ . 

Hux moaned, the sound so high and so loud he actually didn’t believe it came from him at first, but he was still sitting on Ben’s cock and it was _still_ pushing into him, impossibly further and deeper and _more,_ and the sound coming out of Hux’s mouth got even higher, breathy and overwhelmed in a way that had Hux flushing in embarrassment. 

Ben’s arms were shaking with the effort of keeping them behind his head, eyes screwed shut and a steady stream of “oh, shit, oh Force, oh holy fuck, shit” spilling out of his mouth almost silently. 

Finally,  _ finally _ , Hux sat all the way down in Ben’s lap, skin prickling and brain a fuzz of incoherent white noise, stuffed so full he could hardly take a breath. For a long moment neither of them moved, Ben just trembling against the floor with his eyes screwed shut, Hux trying and failing to catch his breath with his hands braced on Ben’s chest. 

Ben opened his eyes and his expression tore Hux open to his core. He wanted to scream. He wanted to claw at his own skin and push his whole body against Ben’s, he wanted Ben’s cock to split him in half. There was nothing in his head except  _ closer, closer, not close enough, please, closer _ . 

“Hux -”

“Shut up.” 

Hux pushed against Ben’s chest, heat of him sinking into Hux’s hands and crawling up his arms, pulled his body off and then eased back down again. The drag of it was unbearable, scalding and electric and perfect and someone was  _ whining _ , loud and high, and Hux truly didn’t know which one of them it was. 

Ben looked like he was about to shatter into a million pieces, arms and legs shaking so violently that Hux felt it in the cock inside him. He lifted himself up and back down a few more times just to watch the broken-open expression on Ben’s face, a zing of power racing down his spine. 

The minutes dragged, stretched out all liquid and warm while Hux worked himself leisurely on Ben’s dick like he had all day, watching and waiting for Ben to break.

“Please,” Ben whimpered, half silent and shivering, “please, Hux.” 

“Emperor.” 

“W-what?” 

Hux pulled himself off till just the tip of Ben’s cock was inside him and then slammed down all at once, punched a breathy, embarrassing sound out of himself and did it again. Ben’s back arched violently, so far it looked almost painful, so far it pushed him further into Hux. 

“ _ Emperor _ ,” he sighed, and the tone of his voice was unreal, reverent and squirming and desperate, low and quiet and honest. Somehow more than the handful of times he’d said it before, he meant this. He really meant it. “Emperor.”

“Good boy,” Hux whispered, and leaned down and finally kissed him. 

It was like a dam broke. Ben’s arms finally moved from behind his head and  _ crushed  _ Hux to him, one hand against the middle of his back and the other tangled painfully, deliciously in Hux’s hair, tongue hot and wet and overwhelming like he was trying to eat Hux alive. 

Everything got a little fuzzy after that. Hux didn’t seem to be able to stop kissing Ben, and Ben refused to let his hands off Hux’s body even for a second, and after laying still and letting Hux ride him as long as he could Ben bruised Hux’s hips and fucked him like Hux had never been fucked in his life, desperate and unhinged and almost painful, angle so dead-on it made Hux dizzy. Hux sank both hands into Ben’s hair and just gasped into his mouth, more of those ridiculous sounds escaping him without his say-so, high and breathy like a needy whore. 

Ben groaned when that thought crossed Hux’s mind, held Hux’s face in both hands and looked at him like he wanted to devour him. He started babbling nonsense, desperate little whimpers of  _ Hux  _ and  _ mine _ and  _ thank you _ and  _ anything for you, anything _ .   

Someone was making a loud, sustained whining sound, higher and higher in a way that was obscene, pornographic. Hux realized with a jolt that he was about to come at the same time he realized the sound was him. 

Ben’s mouth (-wet, red, swollen from Hux’s tongue and teeth-) didn't seem able to close, and he licked at his lips with his mouth wide open, panting and gasping, at the same time he wrapped a huge hot hand around Hux’s aching cock. 

Hux came immediately with a loud (- _ so  _ loud, really, what was he doing-) sigh, breathless and vulnerable, shaking apart with his hands sunk into Ben’s hair. Ben arched his back off the floor again, pushed himself just a little deeper and came right after him. He groaned Hux’s name right into his ear and Hux felt chills at the base of his spine, aftershocks making him shiver.

Neither of them moved for a long moment; Hux laying collapsed against Ben’s chest with Ben still inside him, Ben gasping for air like he was drowning. Ben’s hands started making lazy, affectionate patterns across Hux’s back and - Hux really should have been moving already, really should have been slapping his hands away and pushing himself up. But. He didn’t. He didn’t even untangle his hands from Ben’s hair. Just laid there breathing, listening to Ben breathe.

Ben huffed against Hux’s ear, fingers writing something across his back in a language Hux didn’t know. “You know,” he murmured, voice finally back to normal, usual edge of playfulness already grating on Hux’s nerves, making him sigh into Ben’s hair with relief, “this reminds me of all those -”

“Yep.” 

“You didn’t even let me finish.” 

Hux found himself smoothing his hands over Ben’s hair without really realizing it. “I knew what you were going to say.” 

Ben’s fingers kept writing those strange letters and Hux added, “what are you writing?” 

He should have been pushing him away, putting him back in a cell and ending this whole thing, but. Ben was so warm, and as soon as all the vicious, terrifying Dark Side energy had left Ben’s body a bone-deep exhaustion had settled over both of them. Hux was so tired. 

“None of your business,” Ben said.

“I’m going to arrest you as soon as my legs work,” Hux said, trying to put the proper amount of disdain into his voice. He failed rather spectacularly. Ben laughed, low and quiet but  _ real _ , and the last of the tension eased out of Hux’s chest. 

“I came with you willingly; you remember that, right?” 

Hux hummed. 

“And I saved you.” 

“Hm.” 

“And,” Ben turned his face so he was whispering with his lips pressed to Hux’s temple, “you saved me.” 

“I most certainly did not,” Hux said automatically. 

“You did. From Rey - ah, Ren. From Ren. And then. From.” He stopped and touched the back of Hux’s neck, soft and affectionate. Hux made a disgusted noise in his throat, but it was half-hearted even to his own ears.

“Hm.” 

“I think your entire ship heard you, uh, saving me.” 

Hux flushed. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t moved yet. “Probably.” 

He finally got off Ben’s chest, made a face when Ben’s cock slipped out of him. He flopped down on the floor next to him and Ben looked over at his face. 

“What do we do now?” 

Hux shrugged. “I-”

There was a very large and very disconcerting rumbling that shook the ship as if on cue, followed by a lot of rather unnecessarily loud alarms. Someone was attacking them. Hux supposed they should get dressed. 

“Well,” he said, sighing, “I supposed we should get dressed.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [scream at me about things we both love](https://francisthegreat.tumblr.com/)


	13. Balance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben makes a decision and a discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys, listen. i cannot give you enough hugs and love for all the wonderful things you all have said. i don't feel like me or my story deserve you all but i'm so!!!!! goddamn!! glad!!! you are here.

If the last ten hours could be compressed into a single dumbfounded expression, Ben imagined it was the one he was currently making.

He only got partially dressed, sex-drunk as he was (and whatever else had happened to him - he didn’t want to think about that), and wandered out of the interrogation room behind Hux with bare feet and a very large tear in his t-shirt.

Hux wasn’t any better. In fact, he seemed almost _worse_ given his default state of dress was just … nicer than Ben’s. His hair was in his eyes, the scratch marks on his back went all the way up to the back of his neck (Ben felt a little thrill of pride and possession looking at them) and they were clearly visible over the stretched collar of his undershirt, his shirt was untucked and halfway off his shoulders and he’d forgotten his coat and jacket entirely. His eyes were a little wild, still, his cheeks still a little flushed and he looked _massively_ put-upon.

Ben loved him. Painfully.

He’d never say it aloud, of course. But you couldn’t let someone grab you by the lungs and pull you back from the edge of the Void without knowing. Of course he knew. Of course he loved him.

Hux looked over his shoulder as they made their way through the halls of the ship - the Finalizer, Ben was almost positive - and made a face. He always seemed to thrive in these particular, most chaotic moments.

“Why the fuck are you so quiet back there?”

“Huh?” Ben said intelligently.

Hux turned around and quickened his pace. His hair was stuck up in the back and his dog tags were hanging haphazardly out of his shirt. He’d hardly looked this disheveled when Ben had been balls deep inside him.

“You aren’t making any _noise_ , is that some sort of -” Hux waved his hand in front of him, “Force? Thing?”

Ben looked down. His sock still had a hole in it - he’d have to get his mother to fix that. Could he still get her to fix his socks if he was fucking the Emperor? What, exactly, was the protocol for when you were still loyal to the Resistance but happened to be desperately in passionate love with a horrible megalomaniac? He might have to get new socks himself.

Ben giggled. He felt a little punch drunk. “I’m not wearing any shoes.”

“Of course you’re kriffing not.”

The command bridge was utter pandemonium - Phasma was yelling orders at her officers, her officers were yelling status updates at her, the rest seemed to be sort of yelling indiscriminately. It all made Ben want to giggle again.  

“Sir,” said a mousy looking Lieutenant to Phasma, “more ships are incoming. Readings consistent with Resistance fighters.”

Phasma folded her hands behind her back and looked out the viewport. “Prepare all TIE squadrons.”

“All of them, sir?”

Phasma narrowed her eyes at the Lieutenant and he didn’t say anything else. Presumably, he prepared all TIE squadrons.

When the staff finally noticed Hux and Ben, the entire room went silent. Taking in, Ben imagined, Hux’s truly _obscenely_ disheveled appearance and Ben’s painfully obvious lack of restraints and state of undress. Hux didn’t notice, he was too busy taking in -

Oh, _fuck_.

An armada. Really, that was the only word for it. An _armada_ of ships faced them through the Finalizer’s viewport. And Ben didn’t recognize a single one.

They were all different types of ships, all a bit worse for wear, all obviously unaffiliated, and all _very_ clearly armed to the teeth.

Hux sneered at the ships through the viewport and then turned to the dumbstruck crew. Even Phasma had raised her eyebrows at Hux’s untucked shirt.

“Well, _what the fuck are you waiting for_?” Hux asked the room, voice lowering dangerously.

Phasma walked over to stand next to them, glancing at Ben in an admittedly surprised but generally disinterested way, and turned to Hux. “Emperor, we received a transmission from them. We’re waiting to decode it.”

“ _Decode_ it?” Hux’s tone of voice was so furious it raised the hairs on the back of Ben’s neck. He felt a little dizzy with it.

“It’s in Huttese. Obviously, no one -”

“I speak Huttese,” Ben said from Hux’s other side. Hux turned and shot him a glare that would have melted steel. Ben shrugged. “Lemme see it.”

Phasma made a lurching sort of movement and Ben got the distinct impression that she was stopping herself from rubbing a hand over her face. She sighed. “Fine.” She turned to the Lieutenant from earlier. “Mitaka, pull it up.”

“But sir-”

“ _Pull it up_ , Lieutenant.”

Mitaka pulled it up. Ben squinted at the transmission and waited for the whole thing to play. The bridge was still dead silent. The armada of ugly, unmatched ships still hovered through the viewport. It seemed everyone was holding their collective breath.

Once the transmission ended, Mitaka turned it off and Ben turned to Hux - the only one he had any desire to address - and sighed.

“Well,” he said, tone airy, “their language is atrocious. Obviously. They’re pirates.”

Hux’s knuckles cracked in the fist he was making. The rush of his rage made Ben dizzy again. He kept talking.

“He said, uh, basically, like, they know the Emperor’s here, they know the Emperor’s _distracted,_ whatever the fuck that -”

Oh, right. Probably this was about him. Woops. Ben scratched his nose.

“Uh, anyway, there’s some sort of, um. Bounty. Out. On the Emperor. And on this ship. They were, uh. Informed. That now would be a good time to, uh. Mobilize.”

Actually, what the pirate had said was a vague approximation of _now’s apparently the time to jump down y’all’s dicks_ , but Ben didn’t think the First Order would be too keen on that translation.

Hux, when he spoke, sounded like he was half a light breeze away from exploding like a supernova. “And _who_ ,” he pointedly looked at Ben’s bare feet and then back up at his face, “could have possibly informed them of this?”

Ben swallowed. The actual translation had been something like _Dameron, with the mouth_ , but he said, “Uh, apparently - um. Allegedly. According to that. Pirate. It was, uh. The Resistance.”

Hux turned away from Ben and back toward the viewport and raised his voice into something so ruthlessly efficient and commanding that Ben felt his (exhausted) cock twitch in his pants.

“Fire everything we have. Immediately.”

There was half a second of stunned confusion as the crew struggled to take in this new series of events. Ben imagined his presence was a little - jarring. Hux had no time for it. There was a vicious bite mark just barely visible under his collar when he barked, “ _Immediately!”_

The bridge exploded into action again. Phasma barked into the comm at her wrist, “Ren! Up here. Now.”

Ben and Hux shared a bit of a look before Hux turned his back to him - and _really,_  Ben knew it wasn’t the time or place but his ass was just _spectacular_ \- and joined Phasma in commanding the first wave of fighters.

It was all going rather well; or as well as a bloodbath/dogfight could hope to go, until the X-wings arrived. Ben padded over to Hux in his socks and whispered lowly into his ear, “please, just keep on the pirates.”

Hux turned to him with an expression of complete shock and disgust on his face.

“Are you kriffing serious, Ben?”

“Look, Hux, I mean, the pirates are your problem right now, there’s way more of them and -”

“And the Resistance is responsible for all of this. And now they are here. Right now. Attacking my ship.”

“It ain’t your ship anymore, Emperor; it’s General Phasma’s,” Ben said, one corner of his mouth pulling up a little. He couldn’t help it. Hux’s eyes hardened. Fuck, he was gorgeous.

“It’s _always_ my ship, Solo.”

One of the command staff turned to Phasma and said, “Your orders, sir?”

Phasma actually turned to Hux, expression expectant and a little amused. She wanted to see how this was going to play out. Ben grinned to himself. _The fun one_.

Poe was almost definitely in one of those X-wings. Poe, who had raced Ben over their favorite lake and had laughed in his face and who looked at Finn like he was his whole entire world and who _always_ had hope, _always -_

Ben went for broke. He leaned in even closer, dropped his voice so Phasma couldn’t hear, breathed on the skin under Hux’s ear and watched him shiver. Put his hands over bruises he knew he’d left on Hux’s hips.

“When I was in the Dark,” Ben said softly against Hux’s ear, “I felt _everything_ you felt. Everything you needed. Everything you’d ever wanted and then shut away again.”

The room was suspiciously quiet, the staff suddenly very interested in their computer screens. Most definitely not looking at the prisoner standing behind the Emperor, pressing against him and putting his _hands on him like that_ , whispering something into his ear, how _dare_ he -

“If you let this go,” Ben murmured, voice darkening even further, “I’ll let you do what you dreamt about last month. Do you remember that?” Goosebumps raised down the side of Hux’s neck. He shivered almost imperceptibly against Ben, otherwise stock still. He nodded, expression blank.

Before he gave the command he spoke to Ben, so low the sound almost didn’t come out. “You’ll have to get some garters, Ben.”

“I already have some.”

Hux turned abruptly to Phasma and straightened his shoulders. “Focus your fire on the pirates.”

Phasma’s eyebrows shot up all the way into her hairline, but she didn’t comment on it. She relayed the command and somehow, miraculously, no one argued. Likely because the X-wings didn’t seem to be causing any serious damage, where some of the larger pirate ships were wreaking havoc on the First Order TIE fighters.  

Ben tried not to let Hux see his massive sigh of relief, but he probably did anyway. He looked, oddly enough, relieved as well. One of the larger ships exploded brilliantly behind him and he said, “This means you’ll be a permanent pain in my ass, then?”

Ben smirked. “Define permanent. And define _pain_.”

Hux scoffed and turned back to his command.

An enormous ship dropped out of hyperspace directly in front of them and the room took a collective gasp. Twice the size of the other pirate ships. Ugly. Made from salvaged parts. Mostly Mandalorian.

An alarm sounded off to the right and someone said, “Holo request, sir.”

A human man popped up on the deck’s holo feed, looking smug and, in Ben’s opinion, pretty old and gross. He didn’t recognize him.

“Emperor Hux.”

From the look on Hux’s face, Hux didn’t recognize him either. “Do I know you?”

The man waved a hand. “Just an opportunist, Emperor. This was indeed the time to strike, as promised. You seem...distracted.”

Hux scowled.

“I’ll be sure to take up the mantle of command in the wake of this most tragic of losses for the First Order, Emperor. Who could have ever hoped to imagine all of you here in one place?” The man chuckled. Ben hated him.

Hux turned away from the holo to bark, “Prepare the cannons,” at the command staff.

“You’re much prettier than the propaganda makes you look, Emperor,” said the man. “Perhaps I’ll spare you, for a bit.”

A hush went over the room.

Hux narrowed his eyes, opened his mouth to say something, but Ben wasn’t listening. His vision was blurring, and he was reaching out almost unthinkingly toward the man’s ship. He wanted to crush his whole body. He wanted to feel it in his own hands.

He got lost. For just a second, but it was enough. It felt like hours, just drifting through a sea of Dark, consumed by possessive fear and rage. He wanted to crush that man’s throat between his teeth. He wanted to stop his heart with his hands. He wanted to tear out his eyes and _eat them -_

“Focus,” said a soft voice, pulling him back. Ben looked around and Ren was there, one hand on his shoulder, maskless. She looked furious. Disgusted.

“Focus, you _idiot_ child,” she spat. “Undisciplined. Control yourself or the Dark will devour you.”

Ben blinked. His chest was hot, screaming _kill him kill him crush him eat him_ but he took a breath. Focused, or tried to. He looked down at Ren, eyes wide.

“I...how? What do I do?”

“You need a teacher,” Ren scoffed. “You heedless, reckless animal.” She reached out next to him and he felt her in the Force, her presence a terrible, freezing rage next to his. Ben’s chest felt like a wildfire. Touching Ren’s Force presence was like a chemical burn. He could taste it in the back of his throat, all that terrifying power. The iron control she had over it.

“Focus. Stay _present_.”

Around them, the bridge was mounting a full scale attack on the rest of the pirate ships, but Hux and Phasma seemed to have left this biggest ship to the two of them.

Ren tightened the hand on Ben’s shoulder, an anchor that he was sure was giving him frostbite. There was something purple and _sick_ in her energy, vastly different from the bright, searing red and orange Ben saw when he used the Dark.

“Why...are you helping me?” he asked, mostly to distract himself. Her power was suffocating, terrifying. Intoxicating and addictive. He needed to focus.

“I am capable of making distinctions between what must be done and what I _want_ to do,” Ren said sharply, one good eye flashing. “Unlike you.” She turned to the ship. “This ship must be crushed. I cannot do it alone. Obviously, neither can you.”

Ben looked at her for a long time, then thought about Hux and his hair and his untucked shirt - _perhaps I’ll spare you, for a bit._

“Good,” Ren said, squeezing his shoulder. Ben winced. She might have been breaking it. “Your rage, I feel it. It’s a forest fire, do you feel that?”

“Yes.” Ben’s voice was different, lower and darker. It hummed with all the life onboard the ship, onboard the other ships.

“Imagine pushing that fire into a single, fine point. Sharp, bright. Focused.”

He did. It wasn’t terribly hard, actually. Ben just had to keep thinking of Hux’s face, found a balance between wanting to kiss his eyelids and wanting to crush the windpipes of everyone who would do him harm.  

Something shifted in Ben, like striking a tuning fork. He felt, very suddenly, like everything was finally coming into full focus for him. He felt his own power, his own rage, but he also felt the blinding brilliance of the Force. The truth of it, the knowledge of it. He was standing between the two, balancing perfectly on a knife edge.

“Incredible,” Ren murmured under her breath, almost to herself. “Balance. Incredible.”

Ben felt like all the dissonant parts of his body were finally in sync. He kept his eyes closed and Ren said, “Do you feel it? The consequences your actions will have? Can you see them?”

He could. He could see everything for a moment, so bright it hurt to look at. He saw that if Hux and Phasma shot down the small ship on the left, it would spin off and hit 2 more ships. He saw that if Hux left the bridge, the Finalizer would fall - though he couldn’t clearly see how. He saw that if he and Ren reached together at the exact right moment, with the exact right pressure, and grabbed this man by the throat across the impossible _miles_ of empty space between them, the ship would explode. He couldn’t see how. But he knew, somehow. He looked away before the brilliance of all those possible futures burned out his eyes.

Ren drew her hand up to her chest and Ben realized he was doing the same thing. “Now push it at him,” Ren said. They extended their hands at the same time.

The man - whose name no one had ever learned, clutched at his throat across miles of empty space. His eyes widened and he spluttered, “You - no, this is - impossible -” before he collapsed onto the control panel of his ship. The holo stayed on.

The control panel blinked under his head, some sort of alarm set off by his face.

 _That’s … lucky_ , Ben thought. It wasn’t, though. He knew that.

“Shields on the Mandalorian ship are down, sir,” said the Lieutenant.

“Fire all ventral cannons,” Hux said, eyes on Ben. His expression was guarded, careful. He was watching Ben’s eyes, his hands. Ben grinned at him, giddy and bright. He felt wonderful.

Hux breathed a sigh of unmistakable relief before the pirate ship exploded brilliantly. Ben took a deep breath and gathered all the pieces of himself - all his patience, all his passion, all in one place - and pushed the thought _go, go now_ in the general direction of the X-wing fighters.

After a few frozen seconds, the Resistance retreated all at once.

The pirates kept blowing up. Almost none of the ships even managed to fire on the Finalizer after that, and the ones that did were practically incinerated.

Ben turned to Ren, something like _thank you_ and _fuck you_ on his lips, but she was already gone. Hux was looking at him with an expression so wistful that Ben hardly recognized him. The corner of his mouth lifted and Ben wanted to kiss him so badly he thought he would be consumed by it. Something pulsed in his chest and he remembered something he’d read in secret years ago, as a teenager: _Through passion, I gain strength_.

He took a step in Hux’s direction, drawn to him like a magnet, but his feet stopped of their own accord when he sensed a presence onboard the ship.

Han.

How had he -

Oh, _shit_. The pirates.

Ben realized with no small amount of frustration that he’d hidden in the fleet of pirate garbage and then attached himself to the Finalizer mid-mayhem. Fuck, he’d probably called them there himself.

It was an old trick of his, Ben had seen him do it at least three times.

Hux was busy on the bridge and Ren was nowhere to be found, so Ben slipped down a hallway and followed the impending sense of dread to his father.

He - _they_ , Ben realized with a jolt, Han had someone else with him - were doing a spectacularly bad job of blending in. They had tried to put on stormtrooper uniforms but it looked like no one had taken size into account, and one of them was so short that all the joints of the armor were all jammed up next to each other and he had to walk like a toy soldier. Ben wanted to laugh.

“Dad,” he said, low and soft just in case anyone was nearby.

One of the pair turned and whipped off his helmet. Ben felt a surge of relief and affection at his father’s face. He looked immensely relieved himself. And furious.

“Ben, for the love of -”

The too-short-for-his-uniform stormtrooper suddenly broke into a run and threw his arms around Ben, shockingly strong and solid. _Poe_.

Poe took off his helmet too, touched Ben’s face and looked him in the eye and said, “I was afraid you were dead, Benny. Shit.”

Something twisted in Ben’s chest, the first real flicker of conflict since Hux had kissed him on Arkanis. He gripped Poe’s shoulder and nodded.

“I’m alive, buddy.” He looked around for a third figure. “Where’s Finn?”

Poe grinned like he couldn’t help it at the mention of Finn’s name. “Somebody had to keep the Falcon running. He’s gonna be happy to see you, bud.” A solid weight of guilt settled in Ben’s stomach at what Finn would say when he learned Ben wasn’t coming back with them.

Something flickered across Poe’s features and he faltered. “But - Ben, we saw - I mean - on Arkanis. You, um. The Emperor, there’s this. Video.”

Ben grimaced.

Poe raised his eyebrows. “I mean, that’s fake, right? Like one of those sensational news stories?” Poe’s expression looked desperately hopeful. “It’s all over the fuckin’ galaxy, man. Like, it’s all First Order space is talking about. It’s on every news channel. Even the Resistance gossip channels are talking about it.”  

Ben licked his lips and made a very sheepish face.

Poe looked like he was split evenly between wanting to laugh, wanting to cry, and wanting to punch Ben in the face. “It’s - not. True?”

Ben nodded.

Poe dropped his head back and looked at the ceiling. “Benny,” he said softly, tone unreadable. Ben tried his best to look apologetic, but he really wasn’t.

Han walked over and wrapped Ben up in a very rare hug, all awkward angles and hard stormtrooper armor, and Ben felt a sob stuck in the hollow of his throat. Han pulled back and put a big hand on the side of Ben’s neck, over his ear.

“Fuck, I’m glad you’re alive, kid.”

Ben smiled at him, soft and honest. “I’m glad you’re alive too, Dad.”

“I, uh,” Han sighed. “I love you, kiddo.”

Ben made a face. He gestured to himself, then to Han. “We’re - we’re having a moment here, Dad. You know that?”

Han pushed at Ben’s shoulder and rolled his eyes, stepped back next to Poe.

“No, no, come on, we were doing so well,” Ben said.

“Shut up, Ben, you ruined it.”

Ben laughed.

“So it’s true, then? That, uh. Video. Going around the whole goddamn universe. It’s, uh. Not fake.”

Ben shook his head, sobering. “No, Dad, it’s not fake.”

Han closed his eyes.

“I.” Ben cleared his throat, voice suddenly stuck. “I love him,” he said softly. “I love him.”

“ _Why?_ ” Poe asked desperately, expression frustrated.

Ben thought for a long time. _Because when he touches me I feel every second of the millions of years it took the Universe to make us, to bring us to each other. Because I was an unstoppable force and he was an immovable object. Because he gave me Balance._ “I don’t know.”

“So this is a failed rescue, then,” Poe said, voice sad. “You’re - you’re lost.”

Ben shook his head emphatically. “No, no.” He grabbed Poe’s shoulder and looked around. He wondered how long they could crouch in this corner before someone found them. “I’m. I’m going to stay here. For a while. I think I can - I think I can keep them off the Resistance’s back. For a while. I still have my comm.”

Han’s eyes widened. “If they find out you’re feeding us information, they’ll execute you, kid. Emperor’s,” Han looked like he was swallowing a shot of something gross, “Consort. Or not.”

“I’m not the _Emperor’s consort_ ,” Ben said defensively. It did … have a bit of a ring to it. Though. He wondered if Hux would dress him up in fancy clothes and parade him around his high society First Order parties. _Consort_.

“Anyway,” Ben said, clearing his head, “don’t worry about that. Just tell the General not to lose my number.”

Han gave Ben a very clear, very sad, very unHan-like look.

“Kid,” he started, tone so tender it threatened to pull Ben’s heart out his belly button, “we could nev-”

“Dad. Don’t.” Ben’s voice was tight. “Please. Go, before someone sees you.”

A voice sounded from down the hall that froze all three of them where they stood.

“Ben, there you are, where did -”

Hux stopped. Looked between Ben, Han and Poe, blinked a moment, and then drew his blaster and pointed it straight at Ben’s heart. It shook.

Ben stepped forward and pushed Han and Poe behind him, ignoring the noises of protest from both of them. Hux’s face looked - not right. Furious, but also. Betrayed. Confused. _Heartbroken._

“You _are_ going to leave me,” Hux said softly, so quiet Ben almost didn’t hear. Behind him Poe made a quiet, disbelieving sound.

“Hux -”

“ _Shut up_.” He leveled the blaster at Ben’s face instead, hand shaking rather harder than Ben had honestly expected. Hux glanced at and frowned, took a deep breath. His face smoothed out into something cold and impassive and vaguely disgusted. He brought up his other hand to support the blaster, and it stopped shaking.

“Is there _no end_ to your _fucking_ deceit?” Hux spat, furious in a way that caused Ben physical pain.

“Hux, I’m not-”

Han interrupted with his hands up and said, “He’s actually not-”

“You shut your fucking mouth, Solo, or I swear to you I will shoot it off.”

The corners of Ben’s lips twitched. Hux’s eyes narrowed. They looked - a little wet. That couldn’t be. Ben was tired, he was seeing things.

“What the fuck is funny, you backstabbing whore?” Hux said, expression cracking a little at the name. Ben felt a wave of nostalgia and affection for him. He snickered a little under his breath, giddy from the sex and the battle and the Force and this whole day.

“You, uh.” Ben giggled. “You said ‘shoot his mouth off.’ He -” He snorted, and behind him Han made a half-chuckle and then a frustrated sigh. “He already shoots his mouth off all the time.”

Hux looked at him for a long drawn out moment, and then sagged a little. His mouth quirked up and his eyes, Ben was certain now, were wet with unshed tears.

“Always the fucking same,” Hux said quietly.

“Always with the language,” Ben responded.

Hux’s eyebrows lifted, drew together, and suddenly he looked a _decade_ younger. “Ben-”

Ben was shaking his head and walking toward him before he’d even started speaking. “I’m not,” he said, low and urgent. “I’m not.” He waved Han and Poe off behind his back, eyes locked on Hux. _Please,_ he thought desperately, trying to project it straight into their heads, _please go. I will protect you. Just go._

He stopped in front of Hux and put his hand on the blaster, pushed it down gently. Hux actually let him, expression soft. He made a disgusted sound in his throat.

“Ren was right,” he said, like it was the most reprehensible thing.

“About what?”

Hux looked at him, took in all the parts of his face with an expression in his eyes that made Ben’s hands shake. His fingers tightened on the blaster.

“ _Weakness_ ,” he said.

Ben brought his hand up and touched Hux’s face, pushed his hair back from where it had fallen over his forehead and gave him a crooked grin. Hux rolled his eyes.

“I am going to have to kill them, though. You know that.”

Ben scrunched up his face. “Kill who?”

Hux gestured behind Ben with the blaster and then closed his eyes. He sighed, squeezed the bridge of his nose. The knot of fear in Ben’s stomach slowly worked itself out.

“Where are they, Ben.” He said it like a statement, still pinching the bridge of his nose, and brought the hand still holding the blaster up to his head. He scratched at his hair with the barrel of the gun.

Ben put on his best innocent face - admittedly, it wasn’t a look he had a lot of practise with. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Hux tugged on the front of Ben’s shirt to pull him closer, rested the blaster against his chest. “I’m going to kill you someday.”

“Sure, Starkiller,” Ben said, grinning and running a hand through Hux’s beautiful orange hair. “Someday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there is going to be an epilogue because i can't let go? i'm an emotional hoarder? it's fine i'm fine. it'll probably be done tomorrow. where is my social life? what is it? i never knew.  
> anyway, i love y'all. you've been like WAY too nice. i mean it fills my shriveled sith heart with joy like you would not believe.  
> please come hang out on my [tumblr](https://francisthegreat.tumblr.com/) and we can hug or you can slap me in the face and say AJAX THIS WAS A TERRIBLE ENDING THE EPILOGUE BETTER BE WAY BETTER THAN THIS  
> love you bye


	14. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i have no excuse

Hux fixed his cufflinks and looked impatiently at the refresher door.

“Ben, we’re going to be late.”

Ben’s muffled voice sounded strained, like he was struggling to do something. “They’ll wait for you, you’re the fuckin’ Emperor.” There was a loud thud. “ _Fuck!_ ”

Hux laughed, careful to keep his voice quiet so Ben wouldn’t hear. He hated when Ben knew he’d made him laugh. “Solo, come _on_.”

“Just give me a - _shit_ \- a second! Fuck! This isn’t,” there was another thud, a string of expletives in a colorful variety of languages, and a scratching noise at the door. “Shit. This isn’t easy, you know. You could have picked something -” another muffled curse - “Simpler.”

“Think of it as payment for the press I’ve had to field from that ridiculous _video_ of us,” Hux said, pleased that Ben was struggling so much.

“It’s been like 5 standard months, they haven’t let it go?”

Hux shook his head, realized Ben couldn’t see him, and then cleared his throat.

“Apparently not.” He neglected to mention that he, also, seemed unable to let it go. That he’d watched it himself about 50 times since.

The door to the refresher opened and Ben came stumbling out, graceless and frustrated and red-faced. He smoothed the fabric he was wearing down his legs and looked up at Hux. His mouth fell open.

“Oh, Emperor.”

Hux’s toes curled. He would never, _never_ get tired of hearing Ben say that. Especially in that voice. Especially dressed like this.

It was dark red, billowy and light, ridiculously flattering with a truly obscene amount of gold stitching. His hair was held back from his face with something that looked like a gold wreath, small and delicate and beautiful, a tiny echo of the crown on Hux’s head. Hux could see the stockings through the sheer fabric over his legs. He felt something warm settle in his stomach.

“We could just stay,” he murmured, eyes on Ben’s chest.

“I look like a whore,” Ben said, sulking.

“A very expensive one.”

Ben narrowed his eyes at him, gestured to Hux in frustration. “You look like a fucking -”

“Emperor?”

“Well, yeah.”

Hux smothered a grin. He gestured to Ben’s stockings, the garters holding them up. “Those suit you.”

“They better. They saved the Resistance.”

Hux huffed. “Ugh. Don’t remind me.”

They headed to Hux’s private shuttle and Ben laughed softly next to him, absolutely ridiculous in dark red and gold fabric, black hair and dark eyes making it physically impossible to concentrate on anything else. Ben’s beautiful mouth was speaking.

“-listening to me?”

“What?”

Ben rolled his eyes and followed Hux into the shuttle. “I said, don’t forget I gave you the coordinates for that Resistance weapons cache last week.”

Hux sat down in the pilot’s chair and flicked a few start up buttons. Ben settled next to him and ran the shuttle’s ignition procedures. “Ben, it was _empty_.”

“How was I supposed to know that?”

Hux really, really didn’t want to find any of this endearing. He really didn’t. This would all be so much simpler if he could just _shoot him_ and get back to hunting down the Resistance and indiscriminately ruling the galaxy. All this … press coverage and _temperance_ and sometimes restraining himself from murder was. Exhausting.

The dragging Ben around to parties, though, wasn’t so bad. Especially since he got to wear a very expensive crown and a lot of military regalia, and Ben had to wear basically whatever Hux told him to. Which generally meant Ben was either A) mostly naked or B) looked so ridiculously hot that it would have been less distracting if he _were_ naked. This particular outfit, on this particular night, was somewhere between the two.

Since the Arkanis video, the two of them were photographed. A lot. Hux couldn’t step off his base without someone asking where his _consort_ was.

He didn’t, strictly speaking, hate it.

He _really_ didn’t hate having a six foot something bodyguard built like a brick shit house, who lifted his attackers into the air with the Force and once snapped a man’s neck while wearing a sparkly ball gown.

And he really, really didn’t hate that the same man who snapped a man’s neck while wearing a sparkly ball gown also happened to suck cock like it was all he was born to do in his entire life.

Overall, Hux was. Not unhappy. If he let a few Resistance fighters through First Order space once in a while, well - he could do what he liked. He was the Emperor, after all.

The shuttle touched down and Ben put a hand on Hux’s shoulder. It was warm, too warm. There was something in Ben’s eyes - something that had scared the shit out of Hux when he’d first seen it, before Ben had learned control. Now, it sent a thrill through his spine.

Power.

Before the doors had even opened all the way, the reporters were asking questions. Taking pictures. Yelling, “Emperor Hux! Emperor Hux!” through the crowd, raising Hux’s blood pressure. Ben stepped out first, absolutely devastating in red and gold, the black of his hair and eyes threatening to swallow Hux whole.

The cameras immediately turned on him, and Ben held up a hand. The paparazzi went skidding backwards in all directions, like a strong wind had hit them.

“Yo, if you could all please back the _fuck_ up, the Emperor needs some space to breathe.”

Hux tried very hard to smother the grin pulling at his mouth watching Ben wielding the Force in a sheer dress and black lingerie while saying _yo back the fuck up,_ but he had a poor time of it.

Ben turned back and looked at Hux. There was a dusting of gold over his shoulders and he winked. Hux suddenly wanted to get on his knees for him in front of everyone. He wanted to give Ben the entire galaxy.

He rolled his eyes.

“Bit much, don’t you think?” he muttered as he and Ben walked inside. Ben laughed softly next to him. Not behind him. Next to him.

“Yeah, well,” Ben said, shrugging. “You’re the one who put me in this....outfit. Don’t blame _me_ if I’m overdramatic, dressed like this.”

Hux opened the door for him and said, “ah, it’s my fault then.”

“Always your fault, Starkiller.”

Hux rolled his eyes.

The party was, by all intents and purposes, ridiculously boring. Hux did the bare minimum amount of mingling before attempting to hide with Ben next to the bar, hoarding a bottle of wine to himself and ducking behind Ben’s towering frame when he saw someone he didn’t want to speak to.

Ben touched his shoulder, took the bottle out of his hand and drank from it. He handed it back and said, “this is a snoozefest, babe.”

 _Babe_. He’d never said that before. It must have shown on Hux’s face because Ben looked curiously at him then froze, as if realizing what he’d just said.

“Uh.” He scratched the back of his head. “Just, uh, forget I -”

“No, it was -”

Ben raised his eyebrows. Hux finished in a very soft voice, “it was nice.”

Ben put down the bottle of wine and turned to Hux, eyes smiling. He looked so fucking breathtaking Hux could hardly stand it. It was costing Hux serious willpower to remain a respectable distance when he could see Ben’s _nipples_ through the fabric of his dress, the lines of his chest and back, the gold dusted across his collarbones and bare shoulders.

“You’re staring at me.”

Hux fixed him with a look. “Of course I’m fucking staring at you, you idiot.”

Ben grinned crookedly and Hux’s heart did a weird little lurch in his chest. He coughed.

“Hux,” Ben said, voice dropping an octave. Hux shivered and took an involuntary step closer, drawn into Ben’s eyes like a black hole. “Baby.” Something warm swept over Hux’s whole body like a fever flush. He took another step forward, now dimly aware that there was no longer a respectable distance between them. He could feel the heat of Ben’s body. People were starting to whisper.

Ben reached out and touched the side of Hux’s face. His eyes had little flecks of amber in them, and the gold on his shoulders, on his collarbones, on his _cheekbones_ , made it stand out. Hux licked his lips.

“Hux, kiss me.”

Hux nodded, in a sort of daze but also painfully aware of the room, of what people were going to say. He touched the crown on Ben’s head, such a beautiful, delicate reminder of his own, threaded his hands through Ben’s hair and kissed him.

Someone gasped and a camera clicked. Ben moaned, loud and shameless, and his tongue tasted like rainwater and his hands were so huge and so warm when they wrapped around Hux’s waist.

Faintly, Hux heard glass shattering. Ben smiled against his mouth, bit his lip and then pulled away. Immediately, the crowd went back to pretending to mind their own business. They failed spectacularly. A woman actually tried to take a picture of them behind her _back_.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Hux sighed. “Ben, I’m the -”

“Emperor, yeah, I know.”

“I’ve appearances to keep.”

“You’ve made your appearances.” Ben was sulking, pouting with his lip stuck out. His eyes were huge, pleading. Disgustingly, it suited him. Hux wanted to slap his face.

“Where would we go?”

Ben grinned. “I know a place.”

Hux looked around at the quiet, milling crowd of very rich, very dignified, very _boring_ people. Really, he’d gotten what he’d wanted out of this evening already: Ben looking at him with that _face,_ wearing … that.

He touched the crown on his head. It was rather heavy.

“Fine, but we’ve got to stop by the shuttle.”

\--

The cantina was … oddly familiar.

Hux walked in first, glad to be out of his rather ostentatious clothing and even _more_ glad Ben was still wearing his ( _“Oh no, Ben. I’m changing because it’s necessary to avoid being detected. You’re not changing.”_ ).

He turned to Ben and couldn’t help the corner of his mouth turning up.

“Feeling nostalgic for Tarma?”

Someone knocked into his shoulder on their way to the bar and he actually grinned. Not a single person recognized him.   

Ben shrugged. “Look, it’s not my fault all the seedy places I frequent look the same. Drink?”

It took about an hour for the cantina to descend into madness.

Hux didn’t actually know what had happened. One minute he was staring longingly into Ben’s ass - his eyes. Not his ass. Staring longingly into Ben’s _eyes._ And the next minute he was laying on the bar on his back with a lime in his mouth, dog tags hanging out of his shirt, t-shirt bunched up to his chest, while a half naked Ben drank tequila out of his belly button.

Ben said something up against Hux’s stomach and Hux giggled, loud and high. His hands flew to Ben’s hair while he laughed, tangled into it without really thinking about it. Ben’s stubbly chin tickled - a lot.

When Ben leaned down to bite the fruit out of Hux’s mouth he murmured, “you’re doing great, baby,” right into his ear and Hux flushed all the way to his exposed stomach.

Someone whistled and then the entire cantina erupted into raucous cheering. Ben grinned at Hux and kissed him, hands in Hux’s already disastrously messy hair, mouth warm and tasting very strongly of Ben and liquor.

Hux sat up dizzily, slid to the end of the bar where Ben was standing, wrapped his legs around Ben’s waist without getting up and kissed him again. Fuck, he tasted good. He smelled amazing. He _looked_ ridiculous.

Ben pulled back, lips red and wet and eyes dark. He had a look that generally preceded mayhem of some variety or another.

“I look ridiculous?” He leaned in and bit Hux’s lip, hard, and Hux couldn’t stop the groan that came out of his mouth. The crowd at the bar cheered again. Someone threw something in the distance.  “Good ridiculous or -”

“Good ridiculous,” Hux said breathlessly, giddy and drunk and more aroused then he’d care to admit by all the people watching them. Ben was _his_. He could feel all the eyes on him, on his shoulders and his huge hands and the fucking stockings on his legs, _fuck he’d forgotten about those -_ and Ben was his. All his.

“All yours,” Ben said against Hux’s mouth.

Someone tapped Hux’s shoulder and he waved them off, still sitting on the bar top with his legs wrapped around Ben’s waist. He reached down and touched one of the black garters on Ben’s thigh.

“I want to rip these off you,” he said lowly, slurred voice a bit more gravelly than he’d intended. Ben shivered.

“Listen, I can’t exactly hide a boner in these panties -”

Hux groaned and put his head down on Ben’s shoulder. Someone tapped him again and he ignored it.

“So I’m gonna need you to stop talking like that,” Ben finished.

Hux shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

The tapping had turned into someone _hitting him_ -

“ _What_?” he snapped at the bartender.

The bartender said something in a language Hux didn’t understand, rolling and deep and sort of wonderful. It made all the hairs stand up on Hux’s neck. He turned automatically to Ben, who smiled very fondly at him.

“He says either give them all the full show or get off the fucking bar,” Ben said, laughing.

Hux turned around to face the bartender, very dizzy and fuzzy. “I’ll get off the bar when I _want_ to get off the bar, you kriffing scum,” he said - or tried to say. He wasn’t sure how much of it came out intelligibly. “I’m the _fucking Emperor_ and I can do what I like.” He tried to point to Ben and accidentally hit him in the face. Ben cackled. Hux continued yelling. “I’ll have him fuck me on this bar if I want. Have you seen him? Look at his legs. Piss off.”

Ben was doubled over laughing, gripped Hux by the front of his shirt and kissed him mid-laugh. Hux tried not to sigh into his mouth and failed.

The bartender said something else, and Hux didn’t need to speak the language to understand the threat. Behind Ben, the crowd was going from drunk and excited to drunk and agitated; the noise level was rising and there were less cheers and more angry yelling. Someone broke a bottle and held it up. Ben looked at Hux and raised an eyebrow.

Hux jumped down off the bar and stood next to Ben, touching his shoulder. He felt something warm and electric running through his whole body. When he looked over, Ben’s eyes were just a little more gold than before.

“Can you fight in that dress?” Hux asked, mouth twisted in a violent sort of grin.

Ben ripped part of the fabric off, exposing more of the black stockings, and wrapped expensive red silk around his knuckles. He winked.

“Let’s find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and at long last it done  
> a big thank you to @archistratego, who is one of the sweetest people in the word.  
> the hugest most heartfelt thank yous to @ellabesmirched, without whom literally this entire fic would not have been possible.  
> i really hope you guys like it <3 love you bye


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